


atropa belladonna

by ADyingFlower



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Agoraphobia, Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternative Universe - We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Ambiguous Relationships, Blood and Violence, Chronic Illness, Codependency, Daddy Issues, Dark Keith (Voltron), Descent into Madness, Devotion, Disabled Character, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Family Secrets, Food Porn, Gen, Gender Roles, Ghosts, Gothic, Hallucinations, Homophobia, Isolation, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mommy Issues, Murder, Obsessive Behavior, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Racism, Poisoning, Psychological Horror, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Sibling Incest, Skeletons In The Closet, Social Commentary, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Wealth, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23165038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ADyingFlower/pseuds/ADyingFlower
Summary: My name is Keith Akira Aodhán and I am eighteen years old, he writes.I once thought myself to be an alien from the moon, but my unfortunate human birth has been accounted for by many trustworthy sources. I dislike washing myself, as well as dogs and noisy people. I live with my brother Shiro.Shiro is the most precious person in the world.Six years after the Aodhán family tragedy that killed most of their family in a single dinner, free-spirited Keith, his agoraphobic older brother Shiro, and their mentally absent uncle Ulaz spend their blissful days hidden away from the outside world. Keith fills his time practicing 'magic' to protect his brother and playing in the woods with his cat, Red, until the unexpected arrival of their estranged cousin threatens to bring an end to their idyllic existence, their battle for control unraveling the secrets long since buried in the soil. Who really poisoned the Aodháns that night?Arsenic in the sugar, a seven year old cold case of a missing child, the ghosts that Keith swears he can sense - all things come to an end, one way or the other.
Relationships: Curtis/Shiro (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 34





	atropa belladonna

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man this was such a fun (if wild) project. I tagged sibling incest as precautionary, as while Shiro and Keith's relationship isn't exactly romantic, it's definitely more intense than a normal sibling relationship (and Keith's feelings towards Shiro are a little more than platonic). 
> 
> This is based on Shirley Jackson's book/movie We Have Always Lived in the Castle, though obviously you don't have to read it/know of it. I tried hard combining the eccentrics of the book to the aesthetics of the movie, to an...interesting result. Well I had fun writing it, and that's what matters!! (Note, this is not the sheith fic I talked about on my tumblr! That's a different one, I have a million wips and never enough time lol)
> 
> *Shoves 40k+ of 1950s attitudes towards economic growth, gender roles, rearing children, and mental health in your face*

Carefully, he moves through the remains of an old bedroom, overflowing with piles of neatly stacked books and fly away papers. His foot gently knocks into the wheelchair pressed into the corner, the room barely lit enough to see with the light shining through the cracks of the boarded up windows, ash floating in the air. 

By the footboard of the purple Lit à la Polonaise bed was a single vintage table pushed against it, clear of any clutter besides for a single ornate metal box in the center of it. He stares at it for a moment, face completely devoid of emotion, before picking up the box and carrying it over to the quite cluttered desk pushed under the boarded over window. There’s a typewriter, coated in a heavy layer of ash, among a crooked lamp and piles of envelopes, all of which he pushes aside to place the box down. 

A bronze lion paperweight catches his eye, and his lips quirk up in something no one would quite call a smile as he brushes the metal fur, before he sits in the baroque chair none to gracefully. On top of the box is a black and white photograph, which he only spares a passing glance at before opening it. 

There’s more papers inside, but he flicks through them impatiently until he reaches the swatch of blank papers near the back. He searches deeper into the box until he finds the dip pen and inkwell, uncapping both of them without care before preparing the pen just the way he was shown. 

_My name is Keith Akira Aodhán,_ he writes. _And I am eighteen years old. I once thought myself to be an alien from the moon, but my unfortunate human birth has been accounted for by many trustworthy sources._ Water drips down from the ceiling near the papers, and he scratches at his arm, murmuring to himself words of a spell. 

_I dislike washing myself, as well as dogs and noisy people._ He goes to continue, but pauses when he hears footsteps into the kitchen, the heel of their saddle shoes echoing as they gingerly take the broken stairs down into the basement, presumably to check on their cans. 

Keith’s eyes light up, face softening as he hears them sigh even a floor away, likely checking on their lack of rhubarb jam. Keith wonders if they stop by that spot in the basement whenever he goes down there - he wouldn’t know. The basement is perhaps the only place which Keith will not follow them into. 

_I live with my brother Shiro._ He adds, resting his head against his hand, pen hovering over his brother’s name longingly. _Shiro is the most precious person in the world._

Footsteps slowly come back up the stairs, and the hairs on his arms rise as Shiro hums to himself as he walks past the bedroom door. _I like Shiro._

“Ceiteach?” Shiro calls. “Ceiteach, where are you?” 

_I also like the song ‘Little Bitty Pretty one’, cats, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom._

“Right here, Shiro.” He calls back, writing one last line onto the sheet of paper before capping the inkwell and pen, leaving the paper out to dry. Keith opens the bedroom door, face soft as Shiro does an about turn in the kitchen and faces him with a smile, both of their white clothes shining like beacons in the dark house. 

“I’m always right here.” Keith repeats, shoulders untensing as Shiro holds his hand out to him, interlinking their fingers with something that still isn’t a smile, but perhaps something close to it. Red curls around their legs, whining for food, but all Keith can see is Shiro’s smiling mouth. 

“That you are.” Shiro acknowledges with a forced laugh, averting his eyes even as Keith squeezes his hand. He tilts his head to the side, inquiring, but Shiro only shrugs helplessly. His brother, despite being taller than him, sometimes seems so small and broken. 

From outside, there’s the familiar chanting, half scared words shouting, “ _Ceiteach_ _, said Shiro, would you like a cup of tea?_ ” There’s a round of scattered, nervous laughter as they drop off another basket, the wheels of their bikes churning through their driveway as they take off with a terrified screech. Perhaps it's a pot of stew, or another roasted meat, but Keith hopes it’s some fresh fruit, like lemons or oranges, tangy enough to burn his mouth. 

Shiro laughs too, eyes squinting in the dim light of the kitchen. “It must be terrible to be so afraid.” He muses. 

Keith hums, tilting his head to the side. “I wonder if I could eat a child, if I had the chance.” 

Shiro snorts, thinking about it for a moment. “I doubt I could cook one.” 

He laughs, voice bright and cheery despite the somberness of the house. “Shiro, oh Shiro, I’m so happy.” If there’s tears in his voice, Shiro is the only one to hear them. Only ever Shiro, forever and always. 

_Everyone else in my family is dead._

;

# LAST TUESDAY

 _Oh, itty bitty pretty one_ , Keith mouths to himself as he furiously writes in his notebook, hunched over on the small writing desk as he bobs his head to the turntable. Early morning sunshine bounces off the metallic shine of the wallpaper's flowers, messily covered with countless drawings and diagrams of poisonous plants. Above his head is a framed case of pinned butterfly wings he collected when he was eight, until Shiro cried when he found out about all the killed pretty insects. Keith doesn’t like to make Shiro cry. 

“Ceiteach!” Shiro yells from somewhere downstairs, and Keith stops his frantic scribbling, pen scoring a deep line of ink into his journal. _Come on and talk to me_ , the turntable croons, on the windowsill next to his collection of lucky seashells and plants. It’s time. 

Hissing under his breath, he caps his pen and inkwell, blowing on his page to dry it. Keith drops his pen with his other art supplies, pushing back from his chair, Red shrieking angrily as her sleeping space is disturbed at the ends of the long coat strung over the back of the chair. 

_Let me grab you lovely one._ “Ceiteach, breakfast is ready!” Shiro steps away from the staircase, and Keith closes his eyes for a moment, inhaling deeper. Tuesday is the worst day of the week. Tuesdays and Fridays. 

“Coming!” Keith yells back, standing up with one last longing look at his journal. He’ll finish it when he comes back. _Come sit down on my knee._

Trotting down the stairs, he feels the pressing weight of the countless family portraits lining the staircase, the men dignified and stern, the women frail and faded in the background. If there was children, they were still and silent, seen but not heard, not even in a photo frozen in time. 

Shiro smiles at him as he steps into the kitchen, wiping his hands on his light green four way apron. “Wash your hands.” He reminds him lightly as he does everyday, hip bumping him as he walks by with spatula in hand towards the popping frying pan. 

“I know,” Keith waves off, walking towards the kitchen sink set underneath the large open window towards the backyard. Gingerly, he turns the faucet on with the back of his wrist, breath hitching as water sprouts out, crystalline and cold from the Aodhán well. It brings him to much anxiety to stare at it for too long, so he focuses instead on the backyard, but that still brings him anxiety because he can see the glimpse of town at the end of the slope, so instead he focuses on the shelf right above the pink tile backsplash, holding some more potted plants and a stack of library books. 

As a whole, the Aodhán’s rarely moved things. Sure, things like spoons and plants and library books were shifted around with the seasons, but everything has its place. When it came time for them to put the spring curtains up or mop the floors, everything would be put back exactly where it came: their mother’s favorite tortoise shell comb was never so much a fraction of an inch from where it was placed at exactly ninety degrees on her dressing table. And as soon as a new Aodhán wife moved in, her possessions would be added to the rest, so the foundation could be sturdier than ever. 

Just like their mother. And their aunt, and their grandmother, and so on and so forth. The never ending cycle of marriage and dowrys of the Aodháns. Keith wonders if some day they'll have more things than house, and they'll have to store their spoons out on the lawn.

“That’s a nice book there, Takashi.” Their uncle’s voice breaks his thoughts, and he flicks his gaze away from the books and towards the pink counters, and below them, to the blue counters on their hardwood floors. “What’s it called?” 

Shiro’s voice is full of amusement as he blows out the fire in the burner, the spatula grating against the pan as he makes them their separate breakfasts. “It’s called ‘The Constance Spry Cookery Book’, Uncle Ulaz.” 

“Admirable.” Their uncle laughs softly, the sound of his wheelchair rolling over to his breakfast spot, because the breakfast spot was different than the lunch spot and that was different than the dinner spot. “I can’t…I can’t remember if your father brought his cigar into the garden with him that morning.” 

Even with his back turned towards the kitchen, Keith can tell Shiro stutters. “He did,” he says quietly. “He always did in the morning.” 

Uncle Ulaz goes on without even seeming to hear it. “ _I won’t have it_.” He says loudly, opening up his folder on his table and heedless of the mess it makes. “I heard your mother say that. Your father then said, _We have no choice, I mean it_ \- end quote.” He continues to murmur to himself, blinking up at Shiro when his nephew slides his single egg and toast onto his plate. “Oh, thank you dear.” 

“It’s no problem.” That’s Keith’s cue to turn off the water, hurrying to ‘dry’ his hands against the course towels next to the sink. “Ceiteach, are you done? I made eggs and bacon.” 

“I’m done.” He mutters, brightening up under Shiro’s smile as he prepares their table. As he walks by Uncle Ulaz’s seat, his eyes slide over the multitude of papers on his table. 

**AODHÁN MANSION HORROR - ESTEEMED BANKER AND WIFE MURDERED AT HOME, CHILDREN ORPHANED.**

**AODHÁN HEIR CHARGED WITH MURDER**

Shiro’s wide eyes, staring into the camera holding a black sign against his chest with words in all caps stating _TAKASHI SHIROGANE AODHÁN_. 

He narrows his eyes, before turning away and taking his seat across from where Shiro’s already sitting, nursing his steaming cup of tea with a faraway expression on his face. The perfectly placed geometric folds of the tablecloth distracts him, so much that he forgets about the meal in front of him and just admires it for several moments. It takes a clearing of a throat from his older brother, but eventually Keith huffs and puts the napkin over his lap, digging into his breakfast. 

“How is it?” Shiro asks, like he does every morning. His hands remain firmly around the tea cup, gaze still stuck on the light pink liquid. 

Keith swallows his bite, tapping his fork against the birds painted on the rim of the ceramic plate. “Good as always.” 

Shiro nods, like he expected that answer, and he should considering it’s Keith’s only reply to whenever Shiro asks that stupid question. Of course it’s lovely - Shiro made it. 

When another few minutes pass, the only sounds being Keith’s cutlery and Uncle Ulaz’s muttering, and Shiro still doesn’t make any moves to touch his plate, Keith takes the decision into his own hands. 

Leaning over, he cuts into Shiro’s egg for him, the yolk spilling down his fork and dripping into Shiro’s bacon in a large line. “Eat.” He says firmly, ignoring Shiro’s eye roll as he presses the fork against his mouth. 

Shiro sighs, accepting the bite like a baby bird from its mother. “I can eat you know,” he complains through his chews, holding a hand over his mouth, as even if it’s been six years since dinner parties, habits are hard to break. 

Keith shrugs. “I know.” He says simply, sitting back into his seat and going back to his own food, watching Shiro pointedly. Shiro sighs, again, but finally places his napkin over his lap and picks up his cutlery to eat. 

His brother gets like this at times, ever since they were children. Keith glares at his plate, finishing his food even if everything tastes like ash. 

Habits are hard to break, after all. 

Once Uncle Ulaz is occupied with his papers and both of them have cleaned and dried their plates, they stand in the center of the kitchen, both of them radiating anxiety as Shiro shoves a slip of paper and a bundle of bills into his hand. “Here’s the list -”

“Mr. Reedus doesn’t like big bills, the coins are better.” Keith interrupts, already pocketing the list. 

Neither of them truly care what Mr. Reedus thinks of them, so Shiro just lifts one shoulder as if to say _what can you do?_

“Alright,” Shiro takes a deep breath, setting his hands on his shoulders. “You’ll go to the town, check out our books and records…” He gently spins Keith around, tightening the small ponytail at the nape of his neck. “Buy our groceries, and be back in time for lunch. Easy.” 

Keith peeks over his shoulder at Shiro, lost. “…do I have to?” He asks in a small voice. 

Shiro blinks, as if he wasn’t expecting that question. For a moment, Keith can’t read his face at all. Then Shiro forces a smiles, still holding his shoulders with trembling hands. 

Mind made up, Keith turns around, throwing himself into Shiro’s arms. Shiro lets out an adorable _oof_ , but doesn’t hesitate in returning the hug. “Lock the door.” He orders into Shiro’s ear, voice low. 

Shiro jolts, but when Keith draws back, he’s still smiling. Keith squeezes his hands once, solidly, before hurrying out of the kitchen before he can lose his nerve. 

He doesn’t see how Shiro’s smile drops the instant he’s out of sight. 

Tuesdays and Fridays are the worst days of the week, for he has to go to town. To town, and to all of those who hate him. 

He marches down the grassy backyard with his head held high, holding his head high like a soldier going off to war like his father did over in Germany. All Aodhán men were expected to volunteer, but not Shiro nor Uncle Ulaz or him. Shiro, because he could not leave his stretch of the garden, or Uncle Ulaz because even before the wheelchair he could not see far without the glasses hanging around his neck, and Keith because someone needs to get the groceries for Shiro and Uncle Ulaz. 

As he quickly walks through the woods, he fishes out the coins from his pouch Mr. Reedus gave him back for change on Friday, not guilty in the slightest about having lied to Shiro. Mr. Reedus needed to have a spine to have a preference in how Keith spent his cash. 

Kneeling down in the dirt at the base of his sacred tree, he’s careful about getting dirt on his red shirt with geometric images, if only so the villagers have one less insult to yell at him. He’s less careful about his black Capris - they can take a little dirt, and his bunny shoes are a lost cause anyhow. 

With whispered prayers, he places each of the three silver coins in the dirt, shoveling the soil on top of it. He read in his book of spells that if he buries something evil, or touched by cruelty, then he will take its power for his own, so that he will not be harmed for one whole day. 

The way to town is through Aodhán Road, which goes in a giant circle around the far reaches of the village with their house being at the very end of it. At the gate is the big black rock that marks the entrance of the foreboding gate, with its large locks and wire fence that encircles their entire property, which they own quite a lot of. Their father, like all Aodháns before him, was very wealthy. 

Wealth cannot protect the dead, though. 

The library is first on the list, and he takes his time selecting their books. Their father had a large study, of course, but they never went in there except to dust and change the curtains, and in all honesty he prefers history books and fairy tales than their father's dull taste in novels. _The Hobbit_ was such a favorite that they have a copy of their own on the shelf above the kitchen sink - Keith has caught Shiro boredly flipping through it more than a couple of times while he kills time waiting for something to boil. Shiro prefers more practical books, about gardening tips or cooking mostly, but he occasionally reads a book with Keith when he has the free time. 

He ignores the librarian’s wrinkled look of disdain as she stamps their new books and takes their old ones without managing to touch him once. Six years ago… 

People believe that six years ago, Shiro killed their family and poisoned Uncle Ulaz. 

Stepping out on the library front steps, he takes a moment to just stare at the soft green of the leaves against the sky, ignoring the hateful looks stabbing into his back and not for the first time wishing he could fly instead of having to walk home. Inhaling deeply, he let the promise of spring seep into his bones and warm him, before setting off again. 

Often, he thinks of the walk through town like the board games him and Shiro used to play in secret as children underneath their blankets. Stumble into someone: lose a turn, light foot traffic; go forward two spots, run into James Griffin and his fellas; go straight to jail. If he was really lucky, and the spell especially potent, he could cross the whole board in one decisive move. When that happens, he’s always sure to make an offering of jewelry as gratitude. It’s a warm spring day, so the paths are mostly clear of people, and for that he’s grateful, even as he flinches when a little girl running past him with her siblings giggles innocently and says brightly, “You eat rats, filthy Aodhán!”

He holds his books closer to his chest, something shuddering under his spine. As soon as it started, it’s over, and he walks down the steps with his face downcast. 

There are two ways to get to the grocery store, but one takes him past the general store, where the faded men with their graying skin sit in their rocking chairs chewing their tobacco with spiteful glares, so as always he follows the path along the post office and the Sanda house. 

The Sanda house is the loveliest in town (not counting theirs, of course, as the Aodhán’s outstripped any of them in regards to wealth) and once had a walnut paneled library and a second-floor ballroom with a profusion of roses along the veranda. Their mother had been born there and by all rights it should belong to Shiro. But they think he is wicked and he should be sent away to where they can take apart his brain and cure him of his depravity, so Shiro remains secluded away within their home, where they live as two kings in a castle on the highest hill. 

He walks quickly from the library, head down as he watches his feet move down the sidewalk one after the other, wearing their mother’s black bunnies, as his feet are still not big enough for their father’s shoes: Shiro wore those, even if they were loose around the heel and his feet stomped a little harder than necessary whenever he walked. The library and shopping bags swings by his side, and he focuses on that instead of the stares from inside the post office - it must be Miss Hera, who always hid her piercing stare behind curtains and blinds, too cowardly to be out in the open. It didn’t matter anyway - they didn’t accept mail, or have a telephone, not anymore after the amount of hate letters and calls Shiro received before Keith marched up to the post office to have them removed and took a clock to the phone, since he was not allowed to touch things like hammers or other such tools, while his brother hid himself in his room with a vacant gaze and dried tear tracks on his cheeks. 

Not once did he look at the Sanda house - he couldn’t stand the thought of their mother being born there. It should belong to Shiro. It should be an Aodhán property, not to that bitch of a woman Ellen and her unruly household full of noise. 

Crossing the road always fills him with unreasonable anxiety, so he lingers at the side of Main Street, which is really a flat stretch of concrete that cuts through the entire state. The shabby town, with its squat buildings and faded curtains was a rotting cesspit of hatred built around this slip of a road.

He always thought about rot when he saw the row of glaring eyes; about putrid black rot from the inside out. He wishes it on the village. 

After enough cars putted away into the distance, he squares up his shoulders and crosses the road (lose one turn), shouldering open the door to Mr. Reedus’ store. It goes silent as he walks in, but luckily there’s not too many children nor mothers (go forward three spaces). All the local children know to avoid him, but once a little girl, an out-of-towner, came very close to bumping into his leg before Mr. Reedus yanked her away from him with such strength she screamed. For a long moment after, everyone in the grocery store just stared in silence, until he took a deep breath and asked Keith if that was all. 

Pulling the grocery list Shiro made for him every Tuesday and Friday out of his pocket, he bypasses the line and skips right to the front, the rest of the customers taking several steps back. Just to be sure, he jangles his coin purse as always, so Mr. Reedus can't turn away a paying customer. The entire village hates them for their money, and how they keep it at their home, like they hoard it in giant gold piles and use it to wipe their asses after using the toilet. 

Keith turns his back to the other customers, but he could feel then standing right behind him, holding a can or a half-filled bag of cookies or a head of lettuce, unwilling to move until he left through the door again and they could gossip like the disgusting vermin they are. Mr. Reedus nods at him, as he can't get away with quite ignoring him even if he wanted to. 

“A roasting chicken," He starts off with, and across the store Mr. Reedus whore of a wife opens the refrigerated case and begins to wrap the chicken as quickly as she can. “A small leg of lamb," Keith continues, but unable to quite help himself; “My Uncle Ulaz always fancies a roasted lamb in the spring."

He knows it's a mistake the instant he says it, but it's too late, and he rolls his eyes as they all gasp in sync, like characters in those movies they saw in the cinema before it closed down and everyone in their family died. Keith could grab the butchering knife behind the counter and give them something to really make them scream if he wanted to. But they breed like rabbits, and Shiro doesn't need anything else to worry about on top of the house and Uncle Ulaz. 

“Onions,” Keith miraculously manages to say without choking on his inappropriate laugh. “Coffee, bread, flour. Canned tuna and canned mushroom soup. Walnuts,” he says the next part quietly like it was a secret, almost conspiratorially. “And sugar; we are very low on sugar.”

This time, the gasps are almost a scream. A muscle in his cheek pops with the effort in not bursting into laughter. 

“Two quarts of milk,” He chokes out. “A half pint of cream, a pound of butter.” The Holts had stopped delivering dairy goods to them six years ago and he bought milk and butter instead from the grocery store. “A dozen eggs.” Shiro forgot to put eggs on the list, but there had been only two at home, not nearly enough for both Uncle Ulaz’s breakfast _and_ theirs. “And a box of peanut brittle.” He ends it there, satisfied that it was everything on his list. 

“The Aodháns always did set a fine table.” Someone mutters, perhaps James Griffin's mother, because she was a nosy witch who liked to come on Tuesdays and Fridays mornings just to watch him, like a bug under a microscope. All the humor leaves him at the weight of their eyes digging into his vulnerable back, but he doesn’t turn around. To turn around is to show weakness, and he would rather die than do that. 

_I wish you all died_ , he thinks reverently to himself, and wants more than anything to spit in their faces. Only Shiro’s whisper of _patience yields focus_ and _they want to get a rise out of you don’t let them_ keeps him from saying it, as he trusts Shiro’s words beyond a doubt, but he still wishes that they all die miserably in pain. If he came inside one day and saw all of them dead or dying on the floors, even Mr. Reedus and the kids, he would just step over them and take everything he wanted off the shelves, perhaps kicking James Griffin's mother in the face while he was at. 

He isn't sorry about having these kind of thoughts, even if Shiro paled terribly whenever he brought them up. Keith only wishes they could come true already, but perhaps the spell was too strong for him to cast just yet. 

“It’s wrong to wish those kind of things, Ceiteach.” Shiro once tried to convince him. “It’s - not good for you. It only brings you down.” 

“But I hate them anyways. They all deserve to die for how they treat you.” Keith had told him sincerely, and Shiro averted his eyes and seemed so small again, so they never spoke of it again. 

Mr. Reedus finishes packing up all of his groceries and waits patiently, gaze on something behind him because he's too much of a coward to meet his eyes. Keith lingers, just for the hilarious twitch in his eyebrow, before eventually saying, “That’s all.” 

Keith pays after Mr. Reedus slips him his sheet with all the totals, carefully checking the prices of everything. Mr. Reedus has never made a mistake, but since he can’t murder all of them without disappointing Shiro, he’ll have to settle for being as petty as he could. 

The groceries fills his shopping bag and another paper bag for an extra charge, and while it's heavy, there's no way of getting them home except by just mustering up the strength and carrying them. No one would even think of offering to help him, and he wouldn’t let them anyhow (lose two turns). 

He fumbles at the door for a moment, juggling the groceries and the books in his hands and the fact that he would have to walk past the general store to get to Hunk’s, and he can hear the whispers start up again. His face falls into a blank mask as he thinks about other things, happier things. Today, he would convince Shiro to have their lunch out in the gardens, and while he opens the door and keeps his gaze on their mother’s black bunnies walking one step after another, his mind is in his fantasy of setting their table for outdoor parties and a green checkered cloth like Shiro’s apron and using the yellow dishes with freshly picked strawberries in a white bowl. Yellow dishes, he thought as he feels the eyes of the men in front of the general store looking at him, as yellow is for happiness, and Uncle Ulaz with have his soft egg with toast broken in it, and he’ll remind Shiro to put a shawl on him since it’s still early spring. 

Even without looking he feels the jeers and the grins - he wishes they're all dead and he is walking over their bodies. They never have the balls to say it to his face, but he can still hear their mocking voices to each other in a false falsetto. 

“That’s one of the Aodhán boys.” 

“One of the Aodhán boys from Aodhán farm.”

“Too bad about what happened to the Aodháns.” 

“Too bad about those poor boys.” 

“Nice farm out there, man could get rich farming Aodhán land.” 

“If they had a million dollars and didn’t care what they found buried under the soil.”

“Keep their land locked up, those Aodháns.” 

“Man could get rich.” 

“Too bad about the Aodhán boys.” 

“Never can tell what Aodháns grow besides arsenic.” 

“It’s their fault that the Sanchez boy went missing.” 

“Poor Sanchez boy, eleven years old forever.”

“All his fault that the Sanchez family left town.”

He is walking on their bodies, they are having lunch in the gardens and Uncle Ulaz is wearing his yellow shawl and eating his soft egg with broken up toast. Keith’s hands clench around his bags, because he once dropped the bags and the eggs broke and the milk spilled and he desperately gathered everything up while they leered and insinuated untrue things about him and Shiro, all the while telling himself that whatever he did he would not run away even as he shoved cans and boxes and spilled sugar, the damn sugar, back into the paper bags, because to run away was to show weakness and he would rather die. 

Soon enough, he is in front of Hunk’s, stepping carefully over the crack in the sidewalk that had always been there. Other landmarks, like the time Matthew Holt stained the church’s steps with one of his pranks or one of the Iverson’s boys scored a line down the brick front of the library were landmarks he could remember - he was one of the boys who laughed along at Matthew Holt’s prank, since Matthew and Shiro used to be friends before Shiro’s trial, and then the Holts didn’t deliver the milk and butter anymore, even if Matthew Holt came to their front steps a couple times those first few months before losing his nerve and leaving. 

But the crack has always been there - he used to roller skate past it, always careful not to step on it directly for it would break their mother’s back, or play jump rope with Lance even though Lance always tried to tangle it around his legs. The crack has always been there, just like Hunk has always been there, even if Hunk grew up alongside him; the villagers didn’t always hate them so, though their father said they were vermin and should just be ignored. Their mother once told him that the crack was there when she lived in the Sanda house as just a girl adopted from the west coast, so it was much before she married their father and moved to the Aodhán farm. It’s always been there, like Hunk, and the thought always brings him comfort. 

Opening the door, he nods his head at Hunk as the doorbell rings, taking his seat at the counter and leaving his bags at his feet with all the confidence he could muster. Hunk smiles at him as he finishes wiping the counter, holding a menu even though both of them knew it was pointless - the only change Hunk made was buying the new coffee pot and putting in marble counters when his wife Shay died. Shiro and him used to come sit with Hunk after school in one of the booths against the wall and do their homework together when it still belonged to Hunk’s parents alongside Lance. They would spend their pennies on milkshakes and fries, before buying their father a newspaper he could read before dinner while their mother worked in the kitchen; they no longer bought newspapers, as it made Shiro anxious to see the dates, and Lance was no longer around, but Hunk still sold them. 

“Good morning, Keith.” Hunk says casually, leaning against the counter in front of him. He’s wearing a yellow apron today - yellow for happiness. It suits him, even if he was never quite the same after Lance left. “How are you today?” 

“Fine, thank you.” Keith bites out shortly, but his lips twitch as if they want to smile. Sometimes, he thinks that if everyone in the town were to finally die already, he would want Hunk to live, because Hunk is the only one who is kind to them. Shiro likes Hunk. Shiro liked Lance more, though. “Black coffee, please.” He hates black coffee - the more sugar and milk the better - but people are always watching for a mention of the damn sugar. 

“And Takashi?”

Keith watches the vile coffee pour slowly into the white cup, the heat soaking into his chilled palms. “Fine, thank you.” 

“And your uncle?” 

His lips twitch again. Hunk always does this on purpose to try and make him laugh like they were school children again, playing four square and daring each other at cartwheels in the field behind the school. “Fine, thank you.” 

They’re interrupted by the door slamming over and the raucous of men laughing. “Hunky!” One of them hollers, and his spine stiffens. 

He knows this voice. His spell of protection is broken. 

“Gentlemen.” Hunk tries to call their attention, but it’s too late. Their loud jeers quiet down as they realize who’s sitting at the far end of the marble counter, and his hands clench around the cup, trying to drink as fast as possible without seeming like he was hurrying. Don’t show weakness. 

The stool next to him squeaks, and James Griffin laughs right in his face. “Aodhán.” He mocks. 

Keith doesn’t look at him, staring down into his coffee. He wishes he would not sit so terribly close to him - it’s going to be a pain to get out with all of his bags. He wishes James Griffin would slash his own throat right now and save them all the trouble of having to deal with the pompous attitude of being the chief firefighter in their small village of nothing. But then Hunk will have to clean all the blood after his hard spent marble counters, and Shiro will feel bad for making Hunk have more work than he already has. Even still, Keith wishes he was dead. 

There was a reason he hates James Griffin so much, and why James Griffin hates him so much. 

James Griffin once was in love with Shiro. 

He loved Shiro so much that he wanted to steal Shiro away from them in his automobile and leave town. But Keith told their father. And their father was powerful, and furious about a 'deviant' corrupting his eldest child. So James Griffin lost his job. And his love. And then his automobile. 

James Griffin lights a cigarette right next to him, still leaning in too close to comfort. “So,” he mumbles around his cigarette. “They tell me you’re moving away.” 

When Keith doesn’t say anything, he leans in closer to Keith’s personal space, touching their shoulders together, and only Shiro’s disappointed expression stops him from throwing his cup of hot coffee in his face. “They tell me,” he says slowly, like Keith was a child that didn’t understand what he was saying. “That you’re moving away.” 

Keith slowly slides his hands away from the coffee cup, removing the temptation before it could haunt him more. “No.” He says shortly, seeing James Griffin raising his eyebrows out of the corner of his eye as he finally leans back. 

“No?” He shrugs like he doesn’t care, and Keith’s hands pick at the paper napkin instead. But that was showing weakness, so he forces himself to be still and vows to be kinder to Uncle Ulaz every time he sees a scrap of paper. “Must have just been gossip.” Perhaps James Griffin will die soon - perhaps the rot festering inside of him will finally burst out for everyone to see. “Do you ever hear anything like the gossip in this town?” He asks Hunk. 

Hunk pours him his cup of coffee, scowling. “Leave him alone James.”

James Griffin laughs. “I’m not bothering him, Hunky. I’m just _asking_ golden spoon Keith Akira Aodhán here why everyone in town is asking me if him and his brother are going somewhere else to live.”

Uncle Ulaz is a dying man, dying more brightly than James Griffin or Hunk or anyone else. Poor Uncle Ulaz is dying and Keith should be kinder to him. They’ll have their picnic outside and Shiro will help Uncle Ulaz with his yellow shawl and Keith will lie down in the green grass and watch the clouds move overhead. 

“Here I was all upset,” he keeps going, dipping his spoon in to stir his coffee around and around. “Thinking that our town would be losing one of it’s fine old families, with their fancy private estates and their private paths and their private parties. So sad.” He mocks, once again leaning into Keith’s personal space as he looks determinedly at his lap. “I guess you could say that, most of the Aodháns are gone already.” 

The smoke of his cigarette, dangerously close to Keith’s arms, has every muscle in his body straining to flee from this situation. They’re not thirteen any longer - if Keith punches him, they’ll come for his and Shiro’s necks tomorrow at dawn. 

Finally, James Griffin loses some interest in his monotone expression, as he leans back and looks down the far end of the counter to one of his friends. “I can always tell people that I knew Takashi Aodhán, knew him real well. Ever do anything to you, Ryan?” The instant James Griffin says Ryan, he knows it’s Kinkade, the carpenter who’s dreams of being a Hollywood director crashed after the second great war. 

Ryan Kinkade exhales his own smoke from his cigarette, face as impassive as always. “I fixed their broken step once and never got paid for it.” 

He’s living on the moon, Keith tells himself, hands still in his lap. He has a little house all to himself on the moon. He will listen more when Uncle Ulaz started talking about his papers. He already bought peanut brittle for him to munch on while writing, that’s a good start. 

James Griffin smirks, Keith can hear it in his voice without tearing his gaze away from the end of the marble counter tops. “That must have been a mistake, why don’t you have Takashi Aodhán fix it up for you? Now that Leo Aodhán's gone, you can walk right through those fancy ass gates and see him. He’ll get what’s coming for him, just don’t stay for dinner.” 

The spoon spins, and spins, and spins. Keith glances at the spoon, before darting his eyes back to the counter top, hearing both of their laughter ringing in his ears. 

“…fix it.” Keith murmurs, mouth barely moving. 

Silence. 

Ryan Kinkade pulls his cigarette out of his mouth, watching him coldly as ever. “Excuse me?” 

Keith swallows, his hands holding his knees tightly. “You didn't fix it.” He says quickly. “Father said shoddy work should be punished, not paid for.” He says hurriedly. 

Both of the men exchange glances, the restaurant unbearably quiet. Even Hunk, with his yellow apron, is quiet. 

“Is that so?” Ryan Kinkade finally says, tapping his cigarette on Hunk’s nice marble counters as if to wave off the entire issue. 

James Griffin is not so kind. 

The man leans over in his chair, boxing him in with his arms and face inches from him, and says very, very dangerously, “Go _away_.” With those words uttered, he dumps his cigarette in his half filled cup of coffee, turning away with a dismissive air. 

It’s at this point that Hunk hurries around the counter, grabbing his bags for him and hurriedly shoving them into his arms. “Maybe you should get going, just get heading and tell Shiro I said hello. There won’t be peace around here till you do.” Keith snags James Griffin’s spoon, stuffing it in his pocket before sliding out of his seat. 

“Got that right.” James Griffin snorts as Keith practically races out the doorway. “Just say the word, Keith Akira Aodhán, and we’ll come up there and help you pack. Free of charge!” The last thing he hears is more hooting inside before Hunk closes it with an apologetic smile behind him, and Keith shudders, eyes on his black bunnies going in and out. 

He lives in his castle on the moon, where there’s a fireplace and a garden outside - what grows on the moon? He’ll have to ask Shiro - and they were going to have lunch outside with yellow plates. Everything on the moon was very bright, and wavering colors like the time he had pneumonia; their little castle is a bright blue that’s every shade all at once and no one would ever bother them again. 

He rushes down the road, abandoning his pretenses of showing weakness as he focuses on just getting home. But his spell of protection has broken, and it’s too late, as the Sanda boys with their dirty clothes and squeaking bikes hone in on him.

“Aki-ra,” They singsong, gaining on him even as he runs down the road. Their mother watches them impassively from the other side of the fence, cigarette in hand as they circle around him. “Aki-ra, Aki-ra!”

_Ceiteach, said Shiro, would you like a cup of tea?_

_Oh no, said Ceiteach, you'll poison me._

_Ceiteach, said Shiro, would you like to go to sleep?_

_Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!_

Around and around they went, and if his hands weren’t full he would cup them over his ears and _scream_. He’s on the moon and they don’t speak English on the moon: they speak the song of the stars in a soft velvety tongue. 

“Aki-ra, Aki-ra!" 

“Where's old Shiro - home cooking dinner?” 

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

He wishes they were all dead. Dead on the ground and he’s walking over their bodies while their mother just watches them with her empty eyes, smoking her cigarette with a smirk playing around her mouth.

“Down in the boneyard ten feet deep.” 

“Aki-ra!”

Keith speeds past them, but one of the boys cut him off again, laughing hysterically as if was the funniest thing in the world. “Can’t you do something?” He asks desperately to the Sanda mother, despite knowing he shouldn’t utter a word to her and her treacherous family who stole Shiro’s house. 

She slowly pulls her cigarette out of her mouth, her expression unchanging from her one of dull enjoyment. “Kids,” she finally said, and the boys broke apart, still laughing, high and sharp as they finally stopped circling him enough for him to break through them.

Keith hates them all, hates them more than anything. Their tongues will burn as if they had swallowed molten lava, so much so that their tongue will fall through the hole in their jaw, and all they’ll be able to do is gurgle through the remains of their face.

“Goodbye, Aki-ra,” they mock his foreign middle name as his black bunnies go in and out towards the way home. “Don’t come back, you rat eater!” 

“Tell Shiro to enjoy his dinner!” They crack up laughing as if it was the funniest thing on the planet, and their mother’s warning fades from their mind as they gain on him, but he was at the black rock and opening the padlock, and no one dares follow him after that. 

He sprints through the woods, his heart beating too fast through the overgrown trees and bushes and flowers that no one knew the paths but him. The spell of protection has broken, and he must hurry to cast a new one to keep them safe. 

Stumbling, Keith makes his way to the sacred tree, dropping his bangs and digging with his bare hands into the dirt frantically. His nails clink against a filthy mason jar, yanking it out of the dirt and clumsily opening the top. 

James Griffin’s spoon drops in quickly, but the spell isn’t completed yet, not until it’s buried, and his hands scoop up piles of the loose soil and pat the ground hysterically -

Keith sits back, taking a deep breath as his heart finally calms down. Tears well in his eyes, but the grief is quickly lost to frustration as he picks up a nearby stick and launches it as hard as he can into the woods. How _dare_ James Griffin talk to him like that?! They’re all scum and they deserve to die. The entire village should just burn to the ground already and save him and Shiro the hassle. 

Eventually, he picks himself up, brushing his knees off and grabbing his bags. Their home is safe again - he has no reason to worry.

Shiro meets him at the end of the garden, the house and the sun behind him casting him into shadows as he smiles weakly. “Ceiteach,” he says breathlessly, holding his basket of vegetables and wearing a new apron - his gardening one, blue with red polka dots. “Look how far I came today.”

“You’re too far,” Keith scolds halfheartedly, coming to a stop next to him. “Next thing I know, you’ll be following me into the village.”

Shiro laughs. “I might.” And even though he knew Shiro’s joking, Keith still feels cold at the very thought of it. 

“You wouldn’t like it very much.” He says honestly, imagining just how cruel the reception would be if it was Shiro instead of him. “Lazy bones, take some of the packages, it’s heavy because you order too many things. Where’s Red?” 

Shiro chuckles as he obediently takes the heavier items off his hands, following after him while swaying lightly. He must have pushed himself too far today. “She’s off chasing butterflies last I checked. Did you remember eggs? I forgot to write them down.”

“I remembered. Can we have lunch on the lawn today?”

Shiro hums, looking up at the sky with flushed cheeks. “I don’t see why not.” 

When Keith was young, he thought Shiro was some kind of fairy prince, all kindness and bright smiles. He used to draw him with the brightest of crayons, and he was always surprised at how much Shiro resembled his drawings. He really is some kind of prince from the library books, hidden away in a castle in the books. 

Shiro is the most precious person in the world, always. 

His brother waits for him by the tall front door, quickly letting him in and talking cheerfully about his garden as he walks to the kitchen, not noticing Keith locking the front door behind them. They didn’t really use the rooms at the front of the house - their life is centered around the back of the house, with its kitchen and dining hall and the warm room off the kitchen they used for Uncle Ulaz. Right outside was Shiro’s chestnut tree and the wide expanse of the yards with Shiro’s flowers, and beyond that was Shiro’s garden, and beyond _that_ was the creek that cut through their area of the woods with the shaded trees over it. The backyard was secluded with their fences and trees, so no one could see them even if they drove up, and that’s the way Keith likes it. 

“Can you give Uncle Ulaz his peanut brittle?” Keith asks when they move into the kitchen, spotting Uncle Ulaz still in his old desk playing in the papers, which reminds him to be kinder to him. 

“After lunch,” Shiro says distractedly, lovingly taking the groceries out of the bags and putting them in their place with quiet respect; food of any kind was precious to him, and Keith is not allowed to help. He can't prepare the food or gather mushrooms, though sometimes Shiro let him pick something from the fruit trees. “How about muffins today?” Shiro almost sings happily as he places their library book on their shelf. “Uncle Ulaz will have an egg, made soft and buttery, with a muffin and some pudding if his stomach can handle it.”

Uncle Ulaz perks up at his name, smiling kindly at Shiro. “Splendid, Takashi, though I wonder if it’s page sixty or seventy three in which…” He trails off muttering to himself, but both of them ignore it with practiced ease. 

“And Ceiteach will have something rich and salty, as a reward for coming home from the village. Perhaps I’ll come with you one day too.” It’s the second time Shiro mentioned leaving - Keith feels colder than ever, but then Shiro smiles at him, and it’s okay again.

The rest of the day goes on as normal - they have their lunch on the lawn, and while it’s not as nice as lunch on the moon would be, Shiro still smiles and that’s good enough.

At night, when Uncle Ulaz is put to bed, both him and Shiro lay in Keith’s bed together. Despite Shiro being taller than him, his older brother rests his head on Keith’s shoulder, holding his arm with a far off look. “I’m always happy, you know.” He says quietly, squeezing Keith’s arm once. “When you come back from the village. Not just because you bring me food,” a hoarse chuckle. “But because I miss you.” His voice is absolutely sincere, as if he’s straining for Keith to understand something. 

“I’m always happy to get back.” Keith finally manages to whisper back, hands folded over his stomach as he stares at the far wall blankly.

Shiro shifts closer, his bangs tickling the underside of Keith’s chin. “How was the village today?” He asks, something like curiosity in his voice. 

Keith turns his head away, dismissing the conversation entirely, but Shiro just squeezes his arm again. “I’m getting better.” He says louder, more frantic, and Keith blinks down at him and Shiro’s too wide smile. “I went so far down the lawn today, someday I’ll go with you.” 

The thought is too much to bare. “I’ll take you to the moon.” Keith promises fervently. “It’s beautiful there.” 

Shiro’s ever present smile wilts for a moment, but then it comes back stronger than ever. “We’ll be picking lettuce soon. The weather’s been so warm.” He tries to change the topic, before a teasing note shines through. “You have lettuce on the moon all year round, don’t you?” 

“On the moon we have everything.” Keith strokes his fingers along Shiro’s arm, kissing the top of his head softly. Shiro is the most precious person in the world. “The locks are solid, and tight, it’s just you and me. And the sun would shine everyday.” His fingers tighten, the skin under his nails paling as he stares at Shiro with dark eyes, begging him to understand. “The world is full of _terrible_ people, Shiro. You’re safe here.” 

His brother swallows, blinking rapidly before moving away from him, staring at the ceiling with shuddering breaths going in and out as he staves off his tears. “Goodnight,” he murmurs, sitting up abruptly and leaving Keith tucked into the bed. 

It’s not his fault. Shiro believes in the goodness of people - he doesn’t realize how cruel it is out there.

Shiro lingers at the door, glancing back at him. “Nothing bad will happen, my Ceiteach. I promise.” 

Before Keith can say anything back, Shiro closes the bedroom door behind him. Not long after, the soft music of Shiro’s turntable starts up as he prepares for bed, and Keith’s eyelashes flutter at the comforting sound. 

After a moment, he climbs out of bed, slinking out of his room and down the hall. The key in his hand is ice cold, locking the door from the outside, before sliding the chain shut, and then a chair braced against the knob. He slams the curtains close, encasing the upstairs in darkness. 

Then, in the deep shadows, he slips down the hallway towards Shiro’s room, sitting down against the intricate mahogany door with a deep sigh. Uncle Ulaz is asleep after his small bites of Shiro’s tuna casserole, Shiro is singing to himself in Italian along with the turntable, and the only light in the hallway is the light shining from under his door. Everything is as usual, even if he feels a deep unease within him.

Keith tips the back of his head against the door, mouthing along with Shiro’s deep timber singing. 

_Ciumachella Ciumachella_

_Ciumachella Ciumachella_

# LAST WEDNESDAY

Even now that they’ve withdrawn from their social groups, they still see some society. Most, usually friends of their father, stop by the house without once coming inside, or knock on the door after a sermon on Sunday to inform them what they missed, but there is one exception to the rule:

Allura Altea.

When he was a child, he used to believe that when he grew up he would be tall enough to touch the tops of the windows in their mother’s drawing room. Now, he’s not even taller than his mother was, so there’s no way he can touch the top of the summer windows, because the house was only supposed to be a summer house but their father put in heating simply because there was no other house for them in the winters; it would have been the Sanda house, but that’s no longer an option.

The windows in their mother’s drawing room reach from floor to ceiling, and even sitting on Shiro’s shoulders he can never touch the top. Their mother told him once that the light blue silk drapes they use during Spring to Autumn are over fourteen feet long, while Keith is just a little over five feet while Shiro's closer to six. From the outside, the windows seem almost spidery, high and thin as they are, but on the inside they let in such warm light to both the drawing room and the dining hall. Their mother brought rose brocade chairs from the Sanda house, with her golden harp, and the sunlight streaming through the tall windows only served to shimmer through the countless mirrors and sparkling glass tables. 

Shiro and him only ever use the room when Allura Altea comes to visit - their mother’s voice scolding them for defiling her entertaining space still lingers - but they keep it pristine. His older brother stands on a stepladder to wash the very top of the windows while Keith walks around with a piece of cloth wrapped around the end of their broom to dust the wedding cake trim, all the while staring up at the ceiling paintings of fruit and leaves, wiping off pictures of Cupid’s smiling face and saints singing their praises, around and around until Shiro catches him right before he fell over, both of them laughing at his silliness.

They polish the floors and mend any tears in the long blue drapes and keep their mother’s Dresden figurines in pristine condition. Over each window was a golden valence they beat with a stick to get the dust out it, and golden scroll work around the gas fireplace they wipe with a damp cloth, right below their mother’s stern portrait. She so hated a mess in her drawing room, so none of her boys were ever allowed inside, but they keep it clean and tidy just for her now. 

She always served tea from a low glass table next to large fireplace, so that’s where Shiro sits when Allura Altea comes to visit, while Keith curls up in his small chair in the corner and watches the verbal tennis match with narrowed eyes. He’s allowed to carry the cups and saucers, pass sandwiches and cakes, but never to pour tea. Keith doesn’t mind - he dislikes eating while people were watching him, so he has his tea in the kitchen afterwards while Shiro cleans up. 

On the table today is the thin rose colored cups their mother favored, with two silver dishes stacked individually with small sandwiches and rum cakes who's fruit been soaking in the small jar labeled ‘rum’ in the pantry downstairs for three months now. Shiro’s in his kitchen preparing the tea while Keith waits by the window, glaring out the curtains with crossed arms. 

Allura’s automobile rolls up the hill into their large gravel circle around the fountain, sitting in the front seat with her driver and childhood caretaker Coran Smyth, but in the backseat… 

Keith hurries back into the kitchen, slamming through the kitchen door with wide eyes. “She brought somebody else,” he says urgently, and Shiro’s stiffens. “Are you frightened?”

Shiro stares at him for a moment, before he picks up the tea tray. “No,” he says very quietly. “I’m not frightened.” 

“I’ll send them away.” Keith decides, already moving to take the tea tray out of his hands, but Shiro steps back.

Both of them freeze. 

“It’ll be fine,” Shiro reassures, hands shaking around the tray. “Send them in.”

Keith feels cold. “I won’t have you be frightened.” 

Shiro stares at him. “Send them in.” He repeats.

His hands tighten into fists at his side. “…yes Shiro.” 

Opening the door, he stares with sunken eyes at Allura Altea, standing there in her light pink dress and satin gloves, a necklace of pearls around her neck. “Good afternoon Keith,” she says kindly, like Keith’s a wild animal. “It’s a lovely day, isn’t it? I’ve brought Romelle Pollux, I’m sure you remember her. She and Takashi were only a year apart at school, did you know?” 

As usual, neither Allura nor Coran wait for a reply that isn’t coming. “I’ll pick you two ladies up in an hour, might go get some lunch myself.” Coran waves them off jollily, and Keith silently opens the door wider to allow the women in. “Have a good -” 

Keith slams the door in Coran Smythe’s face. 

He leads them through the house on socked feet, shoulders up to his ears as Romelle and Allura talk like chattering sparrows behind him. “Allura, the staircase!” He hears Romelle gasp quietly, and Allura in turn says rather proudly as if it was her own, “Amboyna pine, imported straight from Italy. Shame that nobody sees it anymore.” 

Shiro stands up from his seat by the fireplace when the women draw near, all three of them exchanging pleasantries while Keith slinks over to his chair in the corner, holding his knee against his chest as he watches them carefully. 

“Your garden is quite something, Takashi.” Allura says after they’ve taken seats; sitting on the sofa with Shiro despite the fact that there are plenty of other couches and Shiro doesn't like anyone that close to him besides Keith. “Were you working in it today?” 

His brother self consciously touches his face like there was a streak of dirt on him, though he had extensively cleaned up before they arrived, as it wasn’t in good manners to have dirt on you when entertaining guests. “I couldn’t help it, it’s such a nice day out.” Shiro laughs shakily, barely noticeable to anyone that wasn’t Keith. He’s doing well. 

“And how is Ulaz, dear? The weather isn’t treating him too badly, I hope.” Allura presses, touching the back of Shiro’s hand gently. Keith feels ill. 

Shiro slowly draws his hand back, masking the movement as pouring them their earl grey tea. The steaming liquid wafts up a small cloud of steam, and Shiro stares into it absently for a moment before smiling at Allura. “Quite well, thank you. He’s expected to join us for tea later.” 

Romelle hums nervously as Shiro passes her a cup. “I’ve never met Ulaz Aodhán.” She says hesitantly; she must be new to this kind of thing. Keith wonders if she came into her money recently, perhaps through marriage. Allura’s husband, Lotor Altea, new money from the city, may have a brother. Allura only ever summers here, but she had a bad cold last autumn and decided to stay in the countryside for the winter to recover away from the smog of the city. Privately, Keith thinks she just wanted to get away from her overbearing husband. 

“You have nothing to worry about, he’s a kind man, if a touch…eccentric.” Allura offers carefully, which Keith doesn’t think is fair. Eccentric means _u_ _nconventional and slightly strange_ according to the dictionary, which Uncle Ulaz is anything but. Uncle Ulaz lives his life in perfect harmony, every day after the other, and there was nothing unconventional or strange about that. She shouldn’t call people things they weren’t, he thinks, remembering to be kinder to Uncle Ulaz. 

“Takashi,” both of their attention is grabbed at Allura’s serious voice, and the damn hand back on Shiro’s arm. “I say this as a friend,” could she not see how uncomfortable she was making him? “It’s spring: you’re young, you’re handsome, you have a right to be happy. Come back into the world, dear.” 

The world goes cold. 

Keith looks at Shiro, urging him to get up, to run away, not to listen to her words, but Shiro only sits in their mother’s chair, swishing his tea around in his cup with an unreadable expression, smile gone. He’s considering it. 

“We’ve forgotten the milk.” Keith stands up abruptly, interrupting whatever Romelle was going to say. 

Shiro blinks, staring up at Keith. “Thank you…dear.” His lips twitch up at his own private joke, but Keith is already halfway out of the drawing room and into the kitchen. 

“You’ve done your penance long enough,” is the last thing he hears, but then he’s in the kitchen, which has once looked so bright and happy but is now a forsaken fortress. Shiro looked as though, after all this time of refusing and denying, he came to realize it might be possible, after all, to go outside past his stretch of the garden. This is the third time in twenty-four hours the idea of Shiro leaving has been brought up, and three times makes it real. 

Keith can’t breathe. Everything feels too big and ready to explode, and all he wants to do is run and scream at the top of his lungs. He grabs his hair, yanking at it as a muffled shriek dies in his throat, his entire body twitching like a dying grasshopper. If he could just, if he could just - 

He grabs the milk pitcher, wildly mumbling to himself. “Make Shiro stay. Make Shiro stay. Make Shiro stay.” 

The milk pitcher, which was once their mother’s, shatters across the ground with a loud _BANG_ , silencing the conversation in the drawing room for a moment. Stepping over the shards, he leaves the pieces on the floor so Shiro would see them and takes down the second best milk pitcher - it wouldn’t match, but only Shiro would care. 

He pads back into the drawing room with the new pitcher, hesitating until Shiro smiles at him with another silently amused, “Thank you dear.” He glances at the milk pitcher in his hands, eyes widening, before he forcibly turns his head towards Allura with a fake smile. “I’ll think about it.” 

“A luncheon, perhaps, with some old friends in the city. No one would recognize you there.” Allura muses, and Keith sets the milk pitcher right by Romelle, dimly noting the trembling in her hands. 

“Sugar?” He offers, unable to help himself. It’s the polite thing to do, after all. 

“Oh no,” Romelle blurts out, wilting under Allura’s stern glare. “No, thank you. No sugar.” 

For the first time, he notices that she’s wearing a black dress with delicate black lace evening gloves. Normally, black is one of his favorite colors, but it’s just not good taste in their mother’s drawing room. Picking up the plate of rum cakes, he offers them to her, knowing full well that she’s been carefully avoiding eating the sandwiches earlier and not caring. She wore black into their mother’s drawing room. “My brother made these this morning.” 

Her hand hesitates, before cautiously taking a rum cake and setting it on the far end of her saucer. “Thank you.” She says again, the tea sloshing with how hard she’s shaking, and it’s hysterical. 

“Do take two.” He presses, muffling his snickers just barely. 

“Oh, I couldn’t.” 

“I insist -” 

“Ceiteach, may you bring the rum cakes over here?” Shiro clears his throat, raising his eyebrow pointedly at him. A brief frown crosses Keith’s face before he obliges. He just wanted to have some fun. 

Once all the rum cakes are distributed, Keith retakes his seat, listening to Allura ramble on and on about inviting this person and that person. He imagines pushing her in front of a train, her silk dress getting tangled around the spikes as the tough fabric spins tighter and tighter, entrapping her before the train runs her over, broken blood and pieces of bone flying everywhere. 

He was going to have to say something soon: Shiro wasn’t looking at him at all, only at Allura. “Why not invite the people from the village?” He asks loudly, making all three of them jump. 

“My goodness, you scared me.” Allura places a gloved hand on her chest, laughing. “I don’t remember the Aodháns ever mingling with the village folk.” 

“No one will come here, they’re too afraid.” Keith continues, being as loud and obnoxious as possible. “They hate us.” 

“Good heavens, Keith.” Allura scolds, like he’s a disobedient child. “I don’t listen to the gossip and neither should you.”

Romelle nods her head. “People will gossip, it’s best to just ignore it and focus on the people who are really your friends.” 

The mere idea was laughable. He wishes they would be just a little more entertaining; Shiro’s looking tired, and if they left early enough, he could play with Shiro’s hair until he fell asleep. 

“Father used to say the townsfolk were lazy animals. Trash.” Keith says almost to himself, eyes on the tea in his Shiro’s hand. It’s shaking. 

“Rum cake?” Shiro asks, desperately with another forced smile. 

“He said that if they only worked a little harder they could have a castle too, and grow things like stores, and roads, and beautiful gardens.” Their father was a firm believer that there were no excuses for poverty, that they only had to work more, and Shiro always looked like he wanted to protest when they were children. Even in school, Shiro raised money for charity or did fundraisers as often as he could - Golden Boy Takashi, people used to call him. Golden Boy Takashi fell so far. 

“Do you honestly suppose that people are afraid to visit here?” Allura asks dismissively, taking a bite out of the offered rum cake. 

“Afraid to visit here?” Someone repeats, and Uncle Ulaz rolls into their mother’s drawing room, dressed smartly in a suit and tie. “My nephew _was_ acquitted of murder, Madams.” He bows to each of them in turn from his chair, and Keith knows that he doesn’t remember either of their names, or even if they’ve met before. “There could be no possible danger in visiting here now.”

“One could say there’s danger everywhere, Madame.” Uncle Ulaz continues, rolling his chair closer. “Danger from poison, perhaps. My nephew Takashi could tell you about simple herbs and garden plants that can kill quicker and more painfully than a rattlesnake.” 

“Now, that’s all been forgotten now. No one even thinks about it anymore.” Allura sets her tea cup down on the saucer, looking as fierce as a lioness over Shiro’s supposed fragility. 

But Uncle Ulaz can do nothing but think about it. “It’s a fascinating case, one of the true genuine mysteries of our time. My time. Soon, the murders of the Aodhán family shall be nothing but a myth. I’m afraid things are no longer as they used to be, especially for families like ours.” 

Allura quite firmly places her saucer on the glass table. “Ulaz, there’s such a thing as _good_ taste.” 

“…taste, madame?” Uncle Ulaz says slowly. “Have you ever tasted arsenic?” 

Romelle blinks slowly, an awed expression blooming over her face. “You mean…you remember? You weren’t at the trial, oh I’m sorry I do beg your pardon -” 

“I’m afraid I was too ill, in both mind and body, to attend the trial.” Uncle Ulaz says shortly, wheeling backwards. “Would you do me the honor of walking with me, Madame? I feel like strolling down memory lane.” 

Romelle swallows nervously, almost pointing at herself as if to ask _me?_ in an aborted motion, but she quickly sets down her tea set, quickly following after Uncle Ulaz. Allura’s face sours, but she cannot say much when Uncle Ulaz asked her to - it’s not proper decorum, of course. 

“It was right here, a family gathering for the evening meal, unbeknownst that it would be the last.” Uncle Ulaz practically caresses the words as he leads her into the dining hall across from the drawing room, and Keith closes his eyes, leaning his head against the back of his chair and just listening to their Uncle Ulaz’s thinly veiled excitement. 

“Arsenic in the sugar.” Both Romelle and Shiro say at the same time, in very different tones as they whisper it. 

“Fate herself was at work that day: some of us, she led through the pearly gates of the afterlife. Some of us took very little sugar.” Uncle Ulaz laughs blandly. “Do you see that portrait?”

It’s a stunning painting, right above the ivory fireplace, painted by hand from a craftsman in the city and cost their father over a hundred bills. Their father, center in the painting sitting in his oak chair, reclined confidently against the hand carved wood and staring straight at the artist. Their mother to the left of him, hand curled over the back of the chair with her hair pinned up with the tortoise shell comb. Shiro to the right of him, behind their father’s back with his shoulders straight. Keith in front of him, hands in front of his waist with his fingers weakly curled around each other. And Sven, sitting on the floor with his signature dark eyes that looked so much like their father’s.

“My brother as head of the family, sat naturally at the head of the table, with the windows behind him and the decanter before him. His wife, a woman of delicate constitution you see, which she unfortunately passed along to Takashi, sitting to the left of him. I, and my wife of course, sat next to her while Takashi, Keith, and Sven sat across from us.” Uncle Ulaz takes a deep breath. “Sven was such a sweet child, a boy of only ten - his death sparked such controversy at the trial.” 

“If he was only ten, then why?” 

“My brother had his reasons, which he never deemed to share with anyone but his wife, but I suspect it was because of Takashi’s health -”

Romelle makes an inquisitive noise, sucked into the mystery of it. “His health?” 

Shiro smiles mirthlessly from inside their mother’s drawing room, not saying a word. 

“Yes, my nephew was always of a poor constitution, like his mother. Many frequent fevers, especially under stress. A shame he was born as a male, if he was a woman, Takashi could have been wedded to a husband with a proclivity towards that sort of thing. As it was, it wouldn’t be good for the heir of the Aodhán family to be sick so often, so Sven was named as heir instead.”

“What about Keith? He _was_ the middle child, after all.” 

A hoarse chuckle. “Keith was a troubled child. He was not at the table that night. A great child of twelve, sent to bed without supper.” 

Keith slowly opens his eyes, staring at the wooden floors with an unreadable expression. Nearby, Shiro laughs softly as he pours both him and Allura more tea, the conversation quieting as they listen to Uncle Ulaz and Romelle talk. 

“Ceiteach was always in disgrace. I used to go up the backstairs with a tray of dinner for him after our father retired to his study for the evening.” Shiro reminisces with a small smile. “He was a mischievous one, that’s for sure.” 

Allura frowns. “An unhealthy environment. A child should be punished for their wrong doings, but they should be made to feel that they are loved.” For the first time, Keith feels something warm spark in his gut, and he slowly raises his eyes to stare at her.

“I still remember the meal like it was yesterday - spring lamb roasted, with a mint jelly and a chef’s salad made straight from Takashi’s garden, alongside spring potatoes and snow peas. But of course, the blueberries were the most important part. Blueberries with sugar as dessert.”

“He didn’t actually do it…did he?” Romelle’s accusation was quiet, but all three of them heard it anyhow. 

Allura, throwing aside any decorum she might have had, curses. “I told her not to mention it, I swear Takashi.” She pleads with Takashi. “I wouldn’t have brought her with me if I knew she would bring it up, I _swear_.” 

“He was _acquitted_ , dear Madame, by the jury. Even if his behavior was odd, there was not enough evidence to convict him. Too young, the jury deemed. Too young and too ill and too well bred to be sentenced. It's not within my nephew's temperament, either, to hold a murder on such a large scale. A single murder, perhaps; a crime of passion, I could see, but any more than that?”

“Even if you say that,” Romelle trails off, deep in thought. “It’s just - strange. I followed the trial of course, but he’s the one who bought the arsenic -”

“To kill rats, Madame.” Ulaz interrupts kindly. 

“He cooked the dinner, he was the only one at the table who didn’t take the sugar. It was Takashi who saw them dropping like flies - I do beg your pardon - and didn’t call for help until it was too late.” Keith slowly moves his eyes over to Shiro, whose face is turned away from both of them, the afternoon sun behind him setting his stoic profile aglow. “Takashi was the one who left all the dishes on the table to scrub the sugar bowl with boiling water before the police arrived.” 

“There was a spider in it.” Shiro murmurs quietly, gently putting his saucer down. Allura scoots impossibly closer to Shiro, and Keith scowls. Ulaz repeats the same thing Shiro said, but Romelle only stutters for a second before continuing on. 

“Still, he said at the trial that he was the only who did it - he pleaded guilty, then all of a sudden switched to innocent -” 

An automobile beeps outside. 

“Dear, I just won’t hear another minute of this. You’ve suffered quite enough.” Allura bundles up her napkin at the same time as Romelle rambles on, slipping on her gloves with a fierce air around her. “ _Romelle_ , come! We’ve overstayed our welcome, it’s past five.” 

Romelle hurries back into their mother’s drawing room, a flush high on her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, I lost track of time, I’m so so sorry.” She grabs her pocketbook, movements erratic with embarrassment. 

“You haven’t touched your tea.” Keith says, wanting to see her squirm. 

She glances down at the teacup, her blush spreading. “Thank you, it was delicious.” 

Uncle Ulaz stops his wheelchair in the hallway by the front door, folding his hands happily on his lap. He looks at Shiro, and then raises his eyes to gaze at a corner of the ceiling, sober and demure.

“Thank you for having us over, Takashi, keep what we had in mind, please?” Allura asks, and Shiro nods his head. “I’m sorry we stayed so long, it was inexcusable.” 

“I had a very nice time, thank you for having me.” Romelle inclines her head, all the nervous energy of a sparrow built up. Keith follows after them to the front door, locking it shut behind them to the sounds of Allura furiously scolding Romelle like a child. He’s laughing as he comes back into their mother’s drawing room, stooping down to kiss Shiro. “A nice tea party, hmm?” 

His brother sinks against the couch, resting his head as he closes his eyes with a laugh of his own. “That _impossible_ woman. Why she keeps coming here, I’ll never know.” 

“She wants to reform you.” Keith plops down on the sofa next to him, pulling Romelle’s plate into his lap and munching on her rum cake. “Though why she brought Miss Pollux is beyond me.” 

“You were teasing her.” 

“A little bit, maybe. I can’t help it when people are frightened: I always want to frighten them more.” 

Uncle Ulaz slowly turns his chair into the drawing room, smiling slightly. “Did I do good, Takashi?” 

“Very well, Uncle Ulaz.” Shiro pats Keith’s knee before standing up, helping their uncle out of their mother’s drawing room. “You didn’t need your notes at all.” 

They’re halfway to the kitchen when Uncle Ulaz pipes up, voice weathered. “It really happened?” 

Shiro’s quiet for a moment. “It did.” 

“Oh.” Another silence. “I’m a bit tired, Takashi. I’ll rest until dinner.” 

Keith carries the dirty dishes on the tea tray over to the sink, as he’s allowed to carry the tray but not to wash the dishes, before retreating into his corner of the room. Shiro quickly comes back once Uncle Ulaz has been put away, eyes widening at the mess of broken shards on the ground. 

But he simply gets the broom out and cleans it up, head downturned as he carefully plucks up the larger shards with his bare hands into the trash bin. 

“Are you going to do what she said?” Keith finally breaks the silence; the mere thought chills him.

Shiro doesn’t pretend not to know what he means, only pausing for a moment before smiling to himself. “I don’t know.” 

The day continues on like all the days before it, but Keith knows better. A new wickedness is coming, he _feels_ it. So he casts a strong spell of protection, by burying another silver coin Mr. Reedus touched, along with a toy their father gifted Shiro whose eyes can never shut. Then, he nails the book their father gave Keith as a birthday present to the pine tree. As long as they remain in place, Shiro will be safe. 

Yet still that night he lingers awake, staring at the ceiling. Shiro’s music has long since silenced, and Uncle Ulaz had his sleeping drought to help his heart pain before bed. Only Keith stays alert, muscles twitching as he listens with petrified stillness. 

Eventually, he almost dozes asleep, but a noise down the hall awakens him. At first, he assumes it’s Red, but she’s content on the pillow next to him, snoring gently. 

Slipping out of bed without even grabbing a shawl, he creeps out of his room and towards the other end of the hall, hand trailing against the wainscoting. Opening the dark room silently, Keith runs his fingers softly against the neat combs and silver watch resting against the dressing table, all the same as it’s always been. That is, until he hears the noise. 

Backing out of the room, he covers his hands with his mouth, hyperventilating at what he can sense. No, no no _no_ \- 

The key in his hand is ice cold, locking the door from the outside, before sliding the chain shut, and then a chair braced against the knob. He slams the curtains close, encasing the upstairs in darkness.

“What are you doing?” 

Keith jolts, whipping his head around. Shiro stands behind in the hallway, shawl around his elbows and the moonlight from the window casting half of his face in darkness. For a moment, Keith swears he sees Lance behind him, eyes bloodshot and skin cold, but when he blinks again the sight is gone. 

“I heard Father in his room.” Keith breathes shakily, reaching out for his brother’s comforting touch. But Shiro draws back, too pale in the silver light. Keith flinches, and whatever wounded look has Shiro cooing softly at him. 

“They’re gone.” Shiro says quietly, hesitantly touching his hair. After a moment, he finally relaxes, letting Keith settle against his chest with his head tucked under his chin. Keith wishes they were one, so that they could never be separated, just like this, forever. 

Keith exhales, squeezing Shiro tightly, still so unsure. “But he’s coming back.”

  
  


# LAST THURSDAY

That morning, he wakes to the sounds of Them calling him for breakfast. But they are dead, and Shiro doesn’t disturb him when he’s sleeping, so he climbs out of Shiro's bed and gets dressed for the day, heading downstairs under the many ever watching eyes, sensing Lance behind him taking the steps two at a time with a quiet giggle.

“I heard them again,” he says that morning in the kitchen, and Shiro doesn’t look up from where he’s pouring hot milk with honey in a mug with painted yellow daisies and trimming Uncle Ulaz’s toast into a square. If the food was uneven, or too big, then he wouldn’t eat it. 

“Just a bad dream.” Shiro says too quickly, picking up Uncle Ulaz’s tray. “He’s not feeling well today, so he’ll have breakfast in bed today.” 

Keith spreads his apricot jam on his toast while Shiro attends to Uncle Ulaz, enamored by the soothing amber of the color. The entire cellar of the house is filled with food - jars of jam made by great-grandmothers, with faded, almost unreadable labels in thin pale writing, and pickles made by great-uncles and vegetables fermented by their grandfather, and even their mother left behind six jars of apple jelly. Once Shiro first started suffering from fevers from aggressive activity, he took to helping in the kitchen, adding rows upon rows of his own jars to the mix. All the Aodháns, from the beginning of their family’s name, preserved their food just so, with richly colored rows of jams and pickles and bottled vegetables and fruit; maroon and amber and dark green stacked together on the shelves lining the walls for eternity. 

Even as he sips at his milk, the feeling of unease still lingers, so he decides to choose three words of very strong protection, and as long as they were not spoken aloud, no change would come. _Melody_ , the first word, he writes in the jam on his toast with the handle of his spoon, since he was not allowed near knives, and ate the toast very quickly. One-third safe. 

Shiro takes his seat across from him, spreading his own jam with a pensive air around him. “Uncle Ulaz is not doing so good, he barely touched his tray and excused me so he could sleep off the medication for the pain.” 

Keith tilts his head to the side. “Are you worried about him?” 

“Very.” Shiro takes a bite of the toast, chewing slowly with his eyes downcast. 

He reminds himself to be kind to Uncle Ulaz. “Make him a little pudding.” Uncle Ulaz likes pudding. 

“Perhaps. We have the ingredients, or a cup of coco and dumplings with his chicken for dinner.” Shiro gets lost in thought, tapping his fingers against the table as he thinks about the menu for tonight. “Hopefully his stomach will be able to handle it. It’s just worrying, the last couple of months have been rough for him.” 

“If I had a winged horse, I could fly him to the moon. Everything’s safe on the moon.” 

Shiro brokenly laughs. “I’m not quite sure even your moon will stop this, my Ceiteach.” 

“Will he die?” Keith blinks languorously. 

“…Nevermind that now.” Shiro sips his drink, finishing his toast in three quick bites. “Could you check on my strawberries for me? Wear your boots, please.” 

He shrugs, uncaring. “Sure. Shiro?” He asks before Shiro finishes putting his dishes away. His brother blinks at him, waiting for his question. “Will you take care of me like Uncle Ulaz when I’m as old as him?” 

Shiro smiles slightly, drying his hands against his pants. “If I’m still around.” The answer chills him, but then Shiro ruffles his hair as he passes by, and it’s okay again. 

Keith kicks his legs, finishing his own tea while Shiro checks on the preservatives in the basement. For a moment, he wonders if Shiro still looks over into that corner every time he walks down the steps, but then he reminds himself to think about what words next to choose and not on things from the past. 

As he puts his dishes in the sink, careful not to get any water on him, he decides on _Gloucester_. It’s a strong word, and hopefully no one will say anything, but no word is truly safe when Uncle Ulaz is talking. 

After heading into the garden and checking on the flourishing strawberries, he eats a few of the sweet raw carrots Shiro left out, reminded of a conversation from last night. “We’ll have a spring salad tomorrow,” he said while making them dinner, and Keith said, “We eat the year away. We eat Spring and Summer and Fall, and we would eat Winter too but it’s too big for us.” And Shiro had just hummed and said, “Silly child.” 

Taking a glass from the cabinet, he stares at the bottom for a long moment, before deciding on _Pegasus_ as his final word, whispering the word into it before filling it with water and gulping it down. 

He feels confident in his spells - those words will protect them, and he sits on the counter while eating Shiro’s vegetables, ever so proud of himself. 

Until Shiro comes back up the stairs, anyways. 

“I need you to go to town.” Is what Shiro tells him, sitting across from him at the table with several jars in front of him, sealed with checkered ribbons and the faded dates inscribed at the front. Keith adjusts the one third on the left so it matches the others in the row, unable to help himself. 

He’s confused. “It’s not my day to go.” Tuesdays and Fridays are the days to go to the village. Mondays are for neatening the house, and Wednesdays are for checking the fence to repair any holes, and on Saturdays he helps Shiro with the garden. Sundays are his most important days, for he checks on the things he buries, but not his most powerful, as Thursday is the day for spell casting: but today is a Thursday and he should be in the attic wearing their clothes and tightening the wards, not going to the village.

Shiro smiles nervously. “We’re out of sugar, and I want to make a rhubarb pie.”

“Red and I dislike rhubarb.” Keith scowls. Shiro should make them a dandelion one, and not use sugar so he won’t have to go for the village on a day that's not his day. The routine is being _ruined_.

His smile falters. “But it has the prettiest colors of all. Nothing looks so beautiful on the shelves as rhubarb jam.”

“Then make it for the shelves then.”

Keith knows it was the wrong thing to say as soon as he says it, the uncertainty sliding off Shiro’s face. For all of Keith’s protests, Shiro is still his older brother. And Keith always listens to his older brother, even if he would rather not. 

“Alright,” Shiro takes a deep breath only a few minutes later, setting his hands on his shoulder after handing him the coins. “You’ll go to the town, buy the sugar from Rolo.” He gently spins Keith around, tightening the small ponytail at the nape of his neck. “And be back in time for lunch. Easy.” 

“But it’s not my day,” Keith protests weakly, already knowing it’s futile. Shiro wants him too, so he will, but he doesn’t want to. 

Shiro’s expression flickers for a moment, hands trembling. “It’ll be alright,” he whispers. 

Keith swallows, closing his eyes. Shiro’s wearing blue today, and he lets the mental image soak into his mind, until all he can see is blue, the universe is blue and the only people alive are him and Shiro and Uncle Ulaz. 

His eyes open. “Lock the door.” 

Keith storms through the long field diagonally, grass so high that it tickles his hands, expression a thundercloud. He did not know he was going to town today, he had no time to check his safeguards. The house would not be secure. 

_Spiritus Pucenta Proteg Me_ , he murmurs on repeat, only ever stopping to say, “Sugar.” to Mr. Reedus, before rushing out of the store, not bothering to stop at Hunk’s. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a red automobile, bright against the grayness of the village, but it’s gone when he turns his head around, bumping into a man with a stern frown. 

“Nothing but trouble,” he mutters as Keith walks as quickly as he dares back through town. The board game is flooding and his shoulders are hiked up to his ears around the bags of sugar. 

Two women chatter obliviously with shopping bags strung over their arms as he rushes by. “It's the Aodhán boy, the youngest one. Did you hear about what he did to the Sanchez boy?” They shriek when he stops abruptly to snarl at them, narrowing his eyes until they scatter, tittering the entire time. 

Keith did _not_ kill Lance. Lance was perhaps the only other person besides Hunk and Shiro he cared about, but Lance is gone now and the entire town thinks Keith was the one who made him go missing. 

“Where you going Keith all dressed up?” James Griffin mocks from across the street, but he has no time for him, he has to hurry home back to Shiro. If he had known he would had to go today, a Thursday, he would have checked the coins, and Shiro’s toy, and their father’s book. 

He runs back to the black rock, gasping at the open gate. There must be visitors - the sort which went around to every door and window trying to get in, shouting, “He killed all those people, we have a _right_ to see him!” While Shiro hid upstairs waiting for them to leave and Keith sat on the bottom step of the stairs with a fire poker wishing they were all dead on the driveway. 

Closing it in a hurry, he runs through the woods, past his hiding place and the creek and their small orchard field, nearly dropping the sugar at the sight on his sacred tree. No, he thinks, horrified. No, this can't be happening. 

“There you are,” Shiro says with a smile as he enters the parlor they never use anymore, setting down his tea and standing up. 

“Shiro, father’s book has fallen from the tree.” He says too loudly, panicking. The omens have aligned, a change is coming and their happiness is being disturbed - 

A figure moves. 

Keith exhales, sunken eyes widening as the man across from Shiro, previously unseen, stands up from the couch with a smile of his own, a twisted caricature of Shiro's.

“It’s our cousin, Curtis.” Shiro says breathlessly, beaming from ear to ear. “I knew him at once, he looks just like father.”

Behind them through the archway was the kitchen, with the both doors to the outside and inside open; he’s the first one who has ever gotten inside and Shiro had let him in. 

“Got a hug for your cousin?” The strange man asks playfully, winking as if this was some secret game of theirs. 

Shiro comes closer to him, holding out his arms to him. He knows better than to touch him, but he still croons gently, “My Ceiteach, it’s okay.” 

Everything was too much, Keith couldn’t breathe and Shiro had let the man in, their safety had been disturbed and it was too much - 

He ran. Sugar broke against the ground, crystalline drops scattering across the wooden floors as he shouldered Shiro aside, out through the kitchen door and into the woods beyond. Keith doesn’t scream, doesn’t cry, only raggedly breathes through the uncomfortable pressure behind his eyes as he races to his hiding place. 

Sniffling, he spreads the blanket Shiro had gave him across the ground, the little burrow hidden by an arch of brambles above him and guarded by the strongest of protection spells buried underneath. Red found him after a while, curling around his head with a loud purr, and all that exists is him and Red and the sensation of Lance sleeping behind him, but that can't be true because Lance is gone. There is no cousin, no Curtis Aodhán, no intruder inside. It’s just him and Shiro and Red, and Curtis is a ghost who has no right to belong in their castle on the hill. When he opens his eyes tomorrow, the ghost will be gone, and they’ll continue their idyllic forever and ever, and nothing will ever disturb them again. 

  
  


# LAST FRIDAY

The only sounds in the kitchen when he returns in the morning is Uncle Ulaz’s murmuring, Red curling around his feet as he lingers in the doorway frightfully.

“The boy was off somewhere,” Uncle Ulaz says in his parched voice. “The boy had gone off somewhere while we sat in the garden - was he fishing, Takashi?” 

“Sven was climbing the chestnut tree.” Shiro has his back to the room, lighting a match to start the stove with rushed movements. “He always loved to climb trees.” 

“Yes, yes, of course. Just a momentary lapse in memory.” The tray in front of him is empty - that’s good, he felt good enough to have his breakfast, with tea instead of milk and honey. “It was the last day of all and I would hate to forget. He was climbing the chestnut tree, shouting down to us from an unbearable height and dropping twigs on us until my sister-in-law scolded him. She disliked twigs falling in her hair, and my wife disliked it too, although she would never speak up a word about Sven. Your father hated when we punished Sven for misbehaving, only him and his wife could do so, and we always tried to be civil; we lived in my brother’s house and ate his food, so we always tried to be civil. He came home for lunch that day, right?” 

“He did.” Shiro confirms, spreading butter on the pan with a little frown. “We had rarebit, because I had been working in the garden all morning and had to make something quickly for lunch.” 

Uncle Ulaz hesitates writing. “I often wonder why the arsenic was never put into the rarebit. They would have lost some hours of life on that last day, but it would all have been over with that much sooner.” His shoulders sag slightly. “It was such a terribly long suffering.” 

Shiro pauses in his cooking, face hidden by his tuff of bangs. “…I don’t know, Uncle Ulaz.” 

At this, Keith finally steps into the room, taking care to have the heel of his black bunnies click down so as not to startle his sensitive brother. Shiro jerks his head up, a smile instantly forming on his lips as he steps away from the stove, opening his arms. “You slept in your garden on the moon, didn’t you?” 

Keith steps into his arms with a soft expression, closing his eyes in bliss. On the moon they wear feathers in their hair and rubies on their hands. On the moon they eat with golden spoons. On the moon they have everything. 

“Good morning, my Ceiteach.” Shiro whispers into his hair, rocking him back and forth gently, like he used to do to soothe Keith to sleep as a baby. Keith hums happily, nuzzling under his chin and welcoming the mind numbing sensation rolling down his spine. 

“Good morning, my Shiro.” He squeezes Shiro around the waist once, letting Shiro step back. Shiro slides his hands down his upper arms, smiling at him lovingly. “I love you.” 

“And I love you.” Shiro promises quietly. “Silly child.” 

Keith shrugs good naturedly, because yes, he is silly. He notices a plate of small perfectly round pancakes on the table, and his lips twitch up into an almost smile. “What? Uncle Ulaz doesn’t like your eggs and toast anymore?” 

Shiro blinks at the plate, and then he faces Keith with another too big smile. “It’s for Curtis.” 

The day falls apart around him. Red watches him from on top of the china cabinet and Shiro flutters around the stove, but it all has no color. He can’t breath, the wire around his lungs too tight. 

“He was a ghost.” Keith whispers. 

“If he’s a ghost then a ghost is sleeping in our father’s bed and ate quite a bit of my spring salad last night.” Shiro hums as he cracks an egg over the pan. “I saved you some, by the way, it’s in the fridge for your lunch, instead of the rhubarb pie.” He smiles kindly at him, just Keith still can’t breathe. 

“I dreamt him away.” Keith explains breathlessly, barely audible. “I dreamt that he came but then I fell asleep on the ground and I dreamt him away.” 

Shiro isn’t listening to him, but to Uncle Ulaz’s rambling, which he’s since tuned out. “Perhaps I I will begin chapter forty-four today. But the earlier pages need brushing up on…Work like this is never done. Takashi? I have no jam.” 

“Would you like some more?” Shiro asks without turning around, scraping the egg off of the pan onto a plate already stacked with bacon. Their breakfast. The wire unwinds slightly, but not enough. 

“No, I have somehow eaten all my toast. I fancy a broiled liver for lunch today.” Uncle Ulaz scratches his face with the hand still holding his pen, scoring a line of ink across his face. Today is a day for long thin things, Keith thinks, like pen lines and the dangling thread from Shiro’s once orange shirt and Keith’s patience. 

“He’s not there.” Keith says louder, waiting until Shiro sets their plates and cups down where they always sit. “Go and look, he’s not there. Shiro, he’s not there.” 

Shiro laughs, but everything is still without color and Shiro’s not looking at him, so Keith grabs his glass and smashes it against the floor. “He’s not there.” Keith repeats, slower, while Shiro swallows carefully, gently taking Keith’s hand. 

“My Ceiteach,” he says very seriously, a furrow forming between his brows. “Curtis is here, and he’s our cousin. He could not come before, because his father - you remember Uncle Arthur, Father’s brother - would not allow it. He refused to take care of you at the trial, do you remember that? As soon as his father died, he came here to help us.” 

Keith’s so confused. “But how can he help us? We’re very happy, aren’t we, Shiro?”

“Very.” Shiro reassures him. “But please be kind to him, he’s come all this way to see us.”

He can breathe again. Curtis is a ghost, but ghosts can be driven away. “He’ll leave?”

Shiro chuckles, slowly letting go of his hand. “Of course, he’s not staying forever.” He moves away to fetch the broom, getting Keith a new glass of milk why he’s at it. “He only came for a visit, after all.” 

“I think I will start chapter forty-four today.” Uncle Ulaz repeats. “I will start with a small exaggeration, and go from there into an outright lie. Takashi?” 

“Yes?” 

“I think I will say my wife was beautiful.” 

Shiro stifles a snort, and even Keith almost smiles as he sits in his chair. His brother sets his new glass in front of him after cleaning up, and takes his seat to eat their breakfast together. Keith doesn’t hurry eating, because it's a Friday and that usually means he must go to the village, but with guests over Shiro would like to keep Keith close. That means helping Shiro out around the house instead of wandering, but that’s okay - Keith likes helping Shiro, especially if it means keeping Curtis away from him. 

Today would be a sparkling day, full of bright and happy things, he decides as he looks at the glass dumped in the trash bin. Retreating to his corner of the kitchen, he awaits the ghost haunting their house, sunken eyes staring at the doorway as the kitchen quiets at the sound of the intruder climbing down the stairs noisily. 

“Morning,” the stranger says happily at the doorway, and Red howls as she jumps down from the china cabinet, shattering another plate against the ground. A bad omen as any other. 

Everyone but Keith flinches, the youngest boy only crouching down to scoop Red up in his arms. Curtis stutters, staring down at the plate like he’s never seen a broken dish before. “Uh, I’m sorry, I’ll -” 

“Don’t worry about it.” Shiro laughs quietly, grabbing the trash bin and quickly kneeling down to clean up the mess. Curtis’ hands flutter for a moment, but he backs up, plucking a strawberry from the white bowl filled with them in the center of the table. Shiro must have harvested them himself last night. 

“Uncle Ulaz, it’s great to finally meet you.” Curtis holds out his hand, which Uncle Ulaz takes with a scrutinizing eye. 

“Curtis.” Uncle Ulaz says slowly; sometimes he’s not sure if he has the right person or not. “You’re Arthur’s son, but you resemble Leo quite a deal more.” 

“My father is dead.” Curtis shrugs, as if that means nothing to him. “That’s why I’m here. To visit my cousins after so long.” 

“He died wealthy? I was the only brother with no knack for numbers; I must preferred my work as a doctor.” Uncle Ulaz turns back to his papers distractedly. He used to make home visits for the rich, until he ate too many blueberries and lost his mind. Now he mostly writes. 

Curtis pops the strawberry in his mouth, taking just a moment too long to chew. “As a matter of fact,” he says quietly. “He left me nothing.” 

“A shame. Our grandfather left a considerable sum of money, even split among the three of us.” Uncle Ulaz straightens his paper, furrowing his eyebrows as he stares at his tray. “Takashi?” 

“Yes, Uncle Ulaz?” 

“Have I had my toast already?” 

Shiro smiles sadly, patting his shoulder as he moves to put the trash bin and broom back once again. “Yes, you have.” 

“Well, I’ll have some more tea then. It would do us some good to catch up.” Uncle Ulaz finally pushes his chair away from his spot, moving away towards the table in the center of the kitchen. 

Shiro hums in acknowledgement, putting the tea kettle onto the stove with a small smile. “Sure thing.” 

Curtis’ eyes drift around the room, eventually landing on Keith with a startled jolt. “Why, isn’t it Keith.” He drawls, like the Holt’s grandmother from the south. When Keith doesn’t say anything, only hides his face in Red’s fur, he chuckles and turns towards Shiro with a sympathetic look. “Shy?”

Shiro pours both of them cups of tea with a small smile and a half barked laugh as he shares a glance with Curtis. “We don’t see a lot of strangers.” 

Curtis is not one to be denied, and Keith stiffens as he comes closer to Keith. “That’s a pretty cat,” he leans down, stroking Red under her chin. “What’s her name?” 

Red and him stare at him, the man who looks so much like Them and yet not, and he figures that Red’s name is the safest thing to say to him first. “Red.” 

“I can see where you got the name.” He tries to tease, but Keith only stares back, so his smile slowly falls. “Is she your special pet?” 

“Yes.” Keith says shortly, taking a step back, and Curtis leaves him with another smile playing around his mouth. 

“Just you see,” he laughs lowly, taking another one of Shiro’s strawberries casually and biting into it. Red juice runs down his lips, and he smiles at Keith through it. “We’re gonna be good friends, you and Red and I.” 

“Here’s your tea.” Shiro interrupts their conversation, placing his cup in front of him. As he walks by Keith, his hand drifts down and he squeezes Keith’s hand, proud of him for having told Curtis Red’s name. “I made you breakfast, as well.” 

“Takashi, where’s my breakfast?” Uncle Ulaz asks, staring at the plate of pancakes Shiro hands to Curtis, covered in syrup and small cut up berries.

“You finished it an hour ago, Uncle. I made you tea and Curtis breakfast.” Shiro says easily, helping him curl his hands around his own cup of lukewarm tea - Uncle Ulaz has shaky hands, so they must take care in what they serve him. 

“Brave man.” Uncle Ulaz replies dryly. “Your cooking is quite lovely, but carries certain disadvantages.” 

Curtis frowns. “I’m not afraid to eat anything Takashi cooks.”

“I must congratulate you, then. I was referring to the effects heavy meals like pancakes that Takashi is apt to serve has on a delicate stomach.” Uncle Ulaz takes a sip of his tea smugly. “I suppose _you_ were referring to arsenic.” 

Keith hides his laugh in Red’s fur. 

Curtis cuts up his pancake into bite sized pieces and brings it to his mouth, then hesitates and lowers it again. He does this several times, knowing full well that Shiro and Uncle Ulaz and Red and Keith are all watching him, before finally resting his fork against his plate with a strained smile. “I was thinking -”

“You had dinner perfectly fine last night and woke up alive this morning.” Shiro mutters, looking quite annoyed. Keith laughs harder. 

At last, Curtis takes the piece of pancake and eats it as quickly as possible, smiling up at Shiro as he gulps it down. “Delicious.” 

Shiro relaxes, and a boyish smile crosses his face as he smiles happily. “Thank you, it’s been long since I’ve served anyone new.” 

Keith feels sick as Curtis opens his mouth to say something, but perhaps Uncle Ulaz can sense this, as his aged voice pipes up. “Takashi? I think I may sit outside for a bit, the stove has made it rather heated in here.” 

Shiro jerks, as if he’s forgotten about poor Uncle Ulaz - Keith should put something bright and pretty by his chair, as today is supposed to be a day of sparkles and light. “Of course, Uncle Ulaz. Would you like anything else with your broiled liver? I canned pears only a couple months ago, but they should still…” His voice fades as he pushes Uncle Ulaz out through the door and into the garden beyond. Red hops out of Keith’s arms and follows behind him, hovering in the doorway and watching them with keen eyes. 

“Red?” Her ears flick up at the sound of her name, and she turns her head to face the ghost. “Cousin Keith doesn’t like me.” He dislikes the way Curtis addresses Red, or the fact that Red seems to be listening to him. “How can I make Cousin Keith like me?” Red’s fur stands on its end, and Keith doesn’t dare take his eyes away from Red. “Here I’ve come to visit my two dear cousins and my elderly uncle who I haven’t seen in years, and Cousin Keith won’t even be polite to me. What do you think, Red?” 

There’s a drop of water clinging to the faucet - perhaps if he holds his breath until it drops Curtis would go away, but that wouldn’t work - holding his breath is too easy. 

“Oh well.” Curtis says casually, dropping his fork on the painted plate with a loud clatter. “Takashi likes me, and that’s all that matters.”

Keith is chilled. Shiro comes back into the kitchen, waiting for Red to move, but when she does not, he merely steps over her. “Everything okay?” He asks carefully, flicking his eyes from Curtis to Keith and back again. 

“Great.” Curtis says before Keith can even think to respond, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Just getting acquainted with my little cousin, that’s all.”

“Oh,” Shiro frowns briefly, before smiling again, crossing the room towards the basement. “I’m going to grab those pears and start on lunch soon, then.” 

Curtis slowly starts to stand. “Why don’t I -” 

“No!” Curtis blinks at Shiro’s shout, while his brother pants with a panicked expression, before forcing a smile on his face. “I mean, you’re our guest. My mother would roll in her grave to hear me letting a guest go down into the cellar.” 

“If, if you’re sure…” Curtis trails off, obviously unsure what to say, and Shiro nods decisively. 

“I’m sure.” 

Later that day, they wipe up and down the windows of the parlor overlooking the garden. Curtis smokes his pipe as he stands next to Uncle Ulaz in his wheelchair, and Keith narrows his eyes at the sight. 

“Oh, Ceiteach? Don’t tidy Father’s room this morning, Curtis is sleeping there.” Shiro says as they climb the stairs together, Keith listening attentively as he slides his rag up the banister to remove Curtis’ touch. If he erases everything Curtis has touched, perhaps the house will no longer recognize Curtis and banish him. “Perhaps I should look through the attic for some of their clothes, I don’t have much to entertain guests in.” 

Keith blinks. “They’ve always been in the box; you’ll have to take them out.” Only Keith could do that on Thursdays, his most powerful day, and that was only to appease Them. 

“It’s not like anyone would care.” Shiro dismisses the musing as they walk towards their mother’s bedroom.

Keith runs the rag over their father’s room doorknob. At least one more touch of his is erased. So many more to go. “I would care if you were more beautiful.” 

He laughs. “Oh, I’m being silly. And I’m much too old to be called beautiful anymore, we’re no longer children wearing nightgowns.” 

He stops in the hall suddenly, staring at Shiro’s back until his brother turns to look at him. “Kindness is beauty and you’re the kindest person I know, always and forever. I love you, Shiro.” 

Shiro stares, his expression unreadable as he twists his own rag around his fingers, over and over and over again. “…Thank you.” He finally says, turning away with his shoulders scrunched up to his ears, entering their mother’s room without a backwards glance. 

There’s sparkles in the mirrors and inside their mother’s jewelry box with her pearls and her sapphire ring and her brooch with diamonds shining in the darkness. Shiro makes shadows as he steps towards the window, his hand hovering over the glass as he looks down at Curtis with something like curiosity in his eyes. 

“Don’t touch the glass.” Keith blurts, and Shiro flinches, hand withdrawing to his side. “Curtis is a ghost, and he’ll leave in his shiny automobile sooner or later.”

“Unless you take him on your winged horse.” Shiro tries to tease, but his voice is too weak, too frail. 

Keith jerks his shoulders, wiping down their mother’s dressing table. His reflection in the grand mirror was all their mother, the same eyes and face and shoulders. “I don’t have a winged horse.” He says sadly, and Shiro comes to him and wraps his arms around him from behind. Their eyes meet in their reflection, and Keith sighs, sinking into Shiro’s touch. 

“I love you too.” Shiro says softly, nuzzling his hair and closing his eyes. “You know that, right? You’re my little brother, I’ve always taken care of you and I always will.” 

He feels some of the chill seep out of him, and he too closes his eyes and lets himself float high above any of this Curtis and the villagers and the longing for the outside Shiro can’t quite disguise. “I do.” 

Eventually, Shiro draws back, and immediately he feels cold. He wishes they could be one person instead of two, some mistake of the universe to put them in two separate bodies, a line where _Keith_ and _Shiro_ are divided. 

They return back to the downstairs, Keith three steps behind Shiro, and he stops dead in the kitchen doorway at the sight of Curtis sitting in the kitchen, smoking his pipe, and his nose twitches as the disagreeable smell. Red sits on the table across from the ghost, both of their eyes staring at each other, and he dislikes the way they seem to be conversing. Shiro leaves to fetch Uncle Ulaz, and Curtis doesn’t say anything for a long moment, only blowing more smoke towards Red. 

“Cousin Keith doesn’t like me.” Curtis repeats, not once looking away from Red. “I wonder if Cousin Keith knows how I get even with people who don’t like me?” 

He narrows his eyes, and when Shiro helps Uncle Ulaz over the step and back into the kitchen, Keith brushes past Curtis and kisses his brother, keeping his eyes on Curtis the entire time. “I’m going out to wander, I’ll be back for dinner.” 

“Wait, Ceiteach -” He doesn’t bother waiting around for Shiro to protest, already escaping past the open back door and into the woods, Red following at his heels as they escape the once oasis towards the sanctuary of the outdoors. 

He stays out until the sun sets searching for some kind of magic to banish Curtis away; their mother jewelry perhaps, but the shine of it wouldn’t work on a dull day, and it seems as if books are powerless against Curtis. Something stronger then, he thinks while cleaning his hiding place of dead leaves and freshening the dirt with all the reverence such a strong protection spell deserves, something strong enough to rid them of the ghost and the troubled memories he brings to Shiro. 

At dinner that night, he pokes at his roast, the mashed potatoes and carrots steaming underneath the chandelier and the small bowl of salad next to it. Shiro forgot and put dressing on his salad, and even without that he wouldn’t have eaten with the ghost sitting at their table. 

Curtis rambles on and on about a trip to Venice, while Shiro watches him with wide eyes and a young smile lingering on his lips. 

“I haven’t been anywhere.” He confesses breathlessly when Curtis stops to eat a bite of Shiro’s roast, fiddling with the napkin over his lap. At Curtis’ raised eyebrow, he continues haltingly. “Father said anything that mattered was in America. “

Keith takes Shiro’s hand under the table, brushing his thumb against the back of his palm. Shiro hesitates for a moment, before squeezing back, sending him a soft smile. 

“I’m surprised you even went to Venice.” Keith mocks quietly, enjoying Curtis' dark expression. “With the whole…” He doesn’t need to continue, if the way Curtis’ knuckles go white around his fork is any indication. 

Shiro laughs too loudly, springing from his seat with a blush high on his ears. “Uncle Ulaz here’s a biscuit, eat the soft side.”

Uncle Ulaz takes the soft bread with a slight frown. “Takashi,” he starts, eyes unfocused. “Do you think I should begin chapter forty-five with: ‘It was a fine morning, a bright fine morning, but none of them knew it would be their last.’?” 

“Uncle Ulaz,” Curtis slowly leans back against their father’s chairs, fingers stepped together. Though the skin tone is different, it was the same jawline, the same eyes and hair and cheekbones. “Do we need to discuss that right now? It was…so long ago.”

Uncle Ulaz shakily breathes in. “That…chair is my dead brother’s chair. Last time I saw him there, he was foaming at the mouth.” He recounts all of this almost factually. 

Curtis slowly puts his fork down. “We don’t want to talk about that bad time, it won’t do Takashi any good to keep talking about it.” Shiro looks rather miffed about being talked about, and Keith squeezes his hand again. “Can’t it all just be forgotten?”

“Forgotten?” Uncle Ulaz asks, voice dangerous. 

“I’m just saying I don’t want to talk about Takashi and that bad time anymore.” Keith blinks when Shiro pulls his hand roughly from his, Shiro’s face pained as he holds his knees with trembling hands.

“I believe that you’re speaking slightingly of my life’s work.” Uncle Ulaz breathes out, hands fluttering around him. “A man does not take his work lightly. A man has his work to do, and he does it. Remember that, Takashi, though with your health -” He interrupts himself by knocking over his water glass, toppling it onto the white tablecloth and onto his suit pants. 

Shiro stands up, already halfway to help Uncle Ulaz dry himself, but Curtis shoves him back firmly with a hand against his chest. “Sit down Takashi.” He orders, and Keith dislikes the way he speaks to Shiro. He dislikes it even more when Shiro listens, slowly sinking back into his chair with a disheveled look to him. 

“Why don’t we,” Curtis aggressively grabs Uncle Ulaz’s napkin, tying it around his neck like a bib. “Tuck in your bib, or you’re going to make a mess of yourself, buddy.” Uncle Ulaz stutters, and Keith feels rage rise within him at just how _confused_ Uncle Ulaz is. Today is supposed to be a day of sparkles and light, and Curtis ought to be kind to poor old Uncle Ulaz. “Does he always sit with you?” 

Shiro swallows as Curtis takes his seat at the head of the table. “When he’s well enough to, yes.”

“I wonder how you stand it.” Curtis states honestly, and Uncle Ulaz rips the napkin off his neck, more offended than confused now. 

But Shiro, lovely Shiro, bounces back easily with another smile on his face. Only Keith can tell that it’s fake. “You’re missing a button Curtis, I’ll sow it for you.” 

Curtis glances down at his shirt curiously, thumbing at where the top button would be. Keith should know - he ripped it out only a couple of hours ago and buried it, along with a scarf he stole from his suitcase and the laces of one of Curtis’ shoes. “I noticed this morning that there’s a broken step out back.” The ghost says, not even bothering to say thank you to Shiro’s offer. “How about I fix it for you?” 

“That would be very kind of you.” Shiro, unlike Curtis, has manners, and even manages a somewhat sincere smile. 

“I could also go to the village, pick up whatever you need. I need to get pipe tobacco anyway.” 

Keith startles. “I go to the village on Tuesdays and Fridays.” 

Curtis chews, staring right at Keith with his dark eyes. “You do, huh?” Keith keeps quiet, reminding himself that the village was the first step on the way home for Curtis. 

“But I worry about you.” Shiro says to Keith sincerely, and Keith can’t bring himself to protest anymore when Shiro cups his cheek with a soft smile, and everything is warm and right in the world once more. Then he turns back to Curtis, his smile changing to something that makes Keith’s stomach sink. “I’ll give you a list, Curtis, and some money, and you shall be the grocery boy.”

Keith would laugh, but Curtis interrupts whatever either of them could say by coughing furiously. “You… You keep money in the house?”

“Father didn’t trust the banking system. It’s all in the safe.” Shiro answers innocently, but Keith’s lips part. Ah, what a greedy bastard, he realizes as he watches Curtis store the fact for later. 

Uncle Ulaz murmurs to himself. “Leo…” 

“So I’m taking little Cousin Keith’s job away from him.” Curtis mocks, popping a carrot slice in his mouth. He grins at Keith through the mouthful, and Keith scowls hatefully. “You’ll have to find something else for him to do, Takashi.” 

"The _Amanita phalloides_ ," Keith says loudly, drawing the attention of the entire table. "Holds three different poisons. There is amanitin, which works slowly and is most potent. There is phalloidin, which acts at once, and attacks the liver and kidneys.” 

“Leo…” 

“And there is phailin, which dissolves red corpuscles, although it is the least potent.” Curtis slowly puts down his fork. 

Shiro laughs, high and trill. “I taught him all the deadly ones, so that he won’t eat them.”

“Leo, what you’re doing with those boys -” 

“The first symptoms do not appear until seven to twelve hours after eating, in some cases not even before twenty-four or even forty hours. The symptoms begin with violent stomach pains,” 

“It’s just not right. You are blessed with three young boys, while me and my wife have no children at all. Their petty squabbles are beneath you -”

“Who’s he talking to?” Curtis asks. 

“Cold sweat,” 

“He thinks you’re his brother Leo.” Shiro smiles, glancing back and forth between all of them as he anxiously fiddles with the napkin in his lap. 

“Vomiting,”

“Alright, enough.” 

“Vomiting,”

“It’s just not right, Leo, it’s just not right -”

“Enough!” The table goes silent, both Keith and Curtis staring at each other with emotions storming behind their eyes. 

Takashi,” Uncle Ulaz says. “Do you think I should begin chapter forty-five with: ‘It was a fine morning, a bright fine morning, but none of them knew it would be their last.’?” 

Shiro’s smile wobbles. 

Needless to say, dinner ends early that night. He sits on the floor in his corner of the pitch black hallway, reheated plate on his lap as he stares into Uncle Ulaz’s bedroom as he finally eats without the sensation of people staring at him. Uncle Ulaz is tired tonight - most nights he stays up later, even if it’s just to hear the soothing melody of Shiro playing the grand piano in the corner of their parlor. 

Shiro tucks the old man into his bed with quiet murmurs, while Curtis lingers in the doorway like the unwanted observer he is. “Takashi,” he says softly when his brother tries to leave the room, grabbing his wrist. “He should be in the hospital.” 

They stare at each other for a long moment, and Keith watches from his spot on the floor, hidden and safe. He dislikes the way Curtis is touching Shiro - hand on his wrist, slowly sliding down to his hand, reaching to interlink their fingers - 

Shiro pulls back abruptly, obviously sensing Curtis’ intention. “I’ll make you a sherry.” He says breathlessly, before turning on his heel and fleeing. 

As Uncle Ulaz whispers, “It’s a terrible thing, to lie here, waiting to die.” Shiro and Keith’s eyes meet in the darkness. Keith doesn’t say a word, not even when Curtis touches Uncle Ulaz’s papers nailed to the wall - he only stares at Shiro, two violet irises glimmering in the dark. 

Shiro’s breath hitches, and for a moment, only a moment, does Keith see the _fear_ reflected in his eyes. Then, his brother escapes the kitchen, head down and expression lost to the shadows of the old house.

# LAST SATURDAY

“May I have my breakfast?”

Shiro flinches, slamming down their mother’s brooch from where he was staring into his reflection with the jewelry held against the folds of his shirt. “Ceiteach, I didn’t see you there!” 

“Why are you in our mother’s room?” He states more than asks, and Shiro nervously laughs and doesn’t answer, sliding the brooch back into the drawer and clasping his hands in his lap. 

“I think I’ll wait to have my breakfast with Curtis.” Shiro continues on, beaming as he slowly stands up. “I’m making gingerbread for him.” 

Whatever expression he sees on Keith’s face, it causes the smile to slowly fade into nothingness, that glimmer from last night reappearing. 

They’ve had breakfast together every day for the last six years. Every. Single. Day. And now it’s gone, like that, because of _Curtis._

Keith storms out of their mother’s room, ignoring Shiro’s concerned call and ripping open their father’s room, which was now Curtis’ through some sinister power at work. His closed suitcase was on the wing chair, things of his on their father’s bureau where only their father’s things had belonged before, his pipe and handkerchief upsetting the perfect balance of their father’s ties and combs. One of the drawers is cracked slightly open, and Keith thinks Curtis would be very angry to know that Keith caught him searching through their father’s things. 

It’s no surprise that it’s their father’s jewelry, Keith muses as he opens the drawer, spotting a small rectangular box which held their father’s watch, its golden chain, his signet ring, and his cufflinks. Shiro never said anything about touching their father’s jewelry, only their mother’s, so he decides to take the watch and it’s chain - he has no use for cufflinks as he owns nothing he could wear it with, and the thought of rings makes him feel physically nauseated, because rings are something people cannot get out of.

He’s careful as he opens the velvet container not to touch the other jewelry resting against the satin cushion, slipping both of them into his pocket before sliding the drawer shut and retreating back into his room, letting the chain dangle around his hands as it shimmers in the sunshine, free of the dark box it’s been trapped in for so long. 

As he walks downstairs, he slips out the side door, catching a glimpse of Shiro laughing as he sits with Curtis, smiling like he only does when he’s alone with Keith late at night or early in the morning. Keith smashes a vase on the porch outside on the way out, running into the woods before Shiro could finish getting up to see him as the culprit. He finds a nest of baby creeks near the river and kills them all; he dislikes snakes and Shiro never asked him not to. 

Keith sits down on a fallen tree, limply eating the blueberries he picks off the bushes nearby. The juice stains his fingers blue, no matter how much he licks them off, and he curls his fingers into a fist, before leaning his head back and _screaming._

It’s all - all too much. So much is burning inside his head, and he grits his teeth as another scream bursts out of him, yanking the grass up around him by the fistfuls and throwing it as far as he can. But it’s still not enough, so he lets himself slide to the ground, pounding his fists against the hardback ground just to empty some of the _noise_ inside his head. 

Slowly, he uncurls his blue stained fingers, raking them through the dirt with wet cheeks. He thinks of burying the watch here, but then he laughs hoarsely at the thought of trying to do magic. He is beginning to think that his spells no longer work.

No matter how many things of their father he buries, he cannot protect Shiro, or make Curtis leave. Their land is filled with Them, this web of terrible things buried to protect Shiro, but it’s all for naught in the end. He's done so many horrible things, all for the sake of Shiro, but _yet_ \- - 

( _hurry up slowpoke, we're gonna be late!_ )

Groaning, he pats his cheeks, forcing himself to sit up. It’s not too late - as long as he carries that with him, he can still protect Shiro. He’ll find what spell it takes to banish Curtis from their estate and fix the locks tighter around Shiro - he’ll find it, and things will go back to the way they were before. 

Just him and Shiro, forever in their castle on the moon. 

He trudges back to their home, heart lightened when Shiro waves at him, running through the garden with a wide brimmed hat on and a basket over his elbow. “Ceiteach.” He laughs earnestly, cupping his face and pressing their foreheads together. “My Ceiteach.”

“Shiro.” Keith greets just as affectionately, fingertips grazing his elbows as he settles with a content hum. “You’re in a good mood.”

“Am I?” Shiro asks, blinking slightly, which was so precious that Keith can’t help but lean up and peck his nose. His brother’s eyes crease up, and Keith feels so light and happy that he feels like he’s a cloud circling the moon. 

“You are.” Keith confirms, not protesting in the least as Shiro takes a seat with him on the marble bench under the old chestnut tree. “I don’t mind, though. I like it when you're happy.” 

His brother laughs, shoulders shaking when Keith tucks his head on Shiro’s arm and closes his eyes as he listens to his precious smile in his voice. “You’re a good child, Ceiteach.” 

He glances up through his hair, almost frowning. “I _am_ eighteen. I’m of age.” 

Shiro stops laughing, but a smile still hovers around his mouth. “I sometimes wish you weren’t.” He says honestly, eyes fixed on the flower bushes nearby. 

Before Keith can ask him to explain, there’s the distant shout of, “Takashi!” And Shiro quickly disentangles from him, touching his cheek gently before vanishing between the sunflowers. Keith feels all too cold again, watching Shiro leave him behind once again as he jogs towards Curtis with a bright beam.

That’s where Curtis finds him an hour later, digging through the dirt with his bare hands and head down, dirt covering his black shorts and dark green shirt. He can blend into the garden if he wants to, fade into the soil and plants, decomposing underneath the ground never to be found again. Maybe if he’s dead, Curtis will finally leave and Shiro will be safe. 

“Hey, what are you doing over there?” Curtis asks curiously, a toolbox dangling from his fingers. Perhaps he believes that he should be kind when Shiro is around to hear him, though his older brother is involved in pulling weeds with a frown while Uncle Ulaz sits in his chair behind him, involved in his papers on his lap. 

Curtis drops the toolkit, kneeling down next to him and taking over for him. “You’re planting too deep, you have to use two fingers.” He demonstrates, pushing aside the dirt with gentleness Keith doesn’t expect from him. Then, the older man pauses, slowly pulling the item Keith was burying out of the soil. 

“Takashi?” Curtis calls, then louder: “Takashi!” 

Shiro pops up, wiping his hands on his apron with another smile on his face. “Yes, Curtis?” 

“What is he doing?” Curtis asks, voice low, as he holds up their father’s watch. Keith scowls - he’ll have to reclaim it later and bury it all over again, and magic was never as good once it resurfaces to the Earth after being buried once before. 

“He’s gardening.” Shiro shrugs, not seeing an issue with it. 

Curtis sputters, gently taking the cursed thing within his palm. “Takashi, this thing is made of gold.” Like it’s some big revelation. 

“That was my brother’s dead watch, I could have sworn he was buried in it.” Uncle Ulaz muses. 

“Hell of a way to treat a valuable thing.” Curtis glares at him, and Keith slowly stands up, keeping eye contact because he is not afraid, not of a ghost who must be driven away, one way or the other.

Shiro laughs. “Nobody wants it.” 

“You could have sold it!” Both Shiro and Keith lean back at the shout, expressions shuttering tight while Uncle Ulaz, oblivious to the cold tension filling both brothers, only murmurs, “I certainly did think he was buried in it.”

Curtis waves the watch wildly, and Keith can’t help but snort at his expression. “It’s worth money. It’s probably worth a great deal of money, and sensible people don’t go burying valuable things.” Keith takes offense to that: you shouldn't call people things they are not, and Keith is certainly very sensible. 

Uncle Ulaz goes back to his papers. “He was never a man to give things away easily. I suppose he never knew they kept it from him.”

Shiro smiles, but it’s obvious that he has no idea what has Curtis so upset. “Curtis?”

Curtis folds the watch up in his hand anxiously. “Yes?” 

“You look flushed.” Shiro says very kindly. 

“It’s…gold.” Curtis repeats, like they don’t already know, and Shiro just continues to smile obliviously. 

“Why don’t you go inside?” Shiro offers generously, swooping down to pick up the toolkit for Curtis and balancing it against his hip. “I’ll draw you a bath and make you lunch.” 

“…Thank you.” Curtis finally accepts, and Shiro grazes his arm as he passes by, humming under his breath as he helps Uncle Ulaz back up the stairs into the house. When it’s only him and Red and the ghost, Curtis slowly unclasps the watch. “Where would poor Cousin Keith go if Takashi turned him out?” He asks Red, wrapping the leather around his wrist and tightening the strap. “What would poor Cousin Keith do if Takashi didn’t love him?”

Curtis leaves then, to take his bath, and Keith barely hides how his face curdles in disgust as he steps into the kitchen, the smell of the ghost’s pipe and his shaving lotion pervading the entire house. He’s careless in how he leaves his items strewn about rather than putting them in their proper places, his gloves and his boots and his tobacco pouch. Every evening he drives down to Hunk’s to pick up a newspaper, and he leaves them where Shiro could see them. Keith picks up the one on the table and hides it under the potato peelings in the trash can - he would burn them, but he’s not allowed to use matches. 

“Shiro?” He asks while Curtis is in the bath, watching his older brother chop the herbs with his shoulders tense. “Has he said anything about leaving?”

Increasingly, Shiro has been cross with him whenever he brought up Curtis leaving, when before he only was ever angry with him when he was mischievous, but now he frowns at him often, as if somehow Keith looks different to him. “I’ve told you,” Shiro says loudly, scraping the plate off into the trash can. “I’ve told you and told you and told you that I won’t hear any more of this silliness about Curtis. He’s our cousin and he’s decided to come visit us, and he will go when he is ready.” 

“He’s making Uncle Ulaz sicker.” Keith protests, sliding closer to Shiro, but when his hand touches Shiro’s arm, his brother swiftly moves away to make Curtis his lunch. 

“He’s only trying to keep Uncle Ulaz from thinking about sad things.” Shiro laughs, but it’s a note too off, his breathing coming in too quick as he pulls the bread out of the packaging. “He should be more cheerful!”

Keith narrows his eyes. “Why should Uncle Ulaz be more cheerful if he’s going to die?” 

Shiro isn’t paying attention, his movements frenzied as he slices the bread, hands shaking wildly. “I haven’t been doing my duty.” He confesses hurriedly, ripping apart the bread until each slice tumbles against the counter. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Keith tries to come closer once more, but Shiro holds up a hand to stop him. To stop him. To stop _him_. 

“All this time,” Shiro says slowly, as if he’s not sure the correct order of the words. He stands by the stove in the sunlight with color in his hair and eyes and not a single smile, and he says very, very slowly. “I’ve been hiding here.” 

“The world -” 

Shiro interrupts him. “I have let Uncle Ulaz keep reliving that awful day over and over again. I’ve let you run completely wild - when’s the last time you’ve brushed your hair?” Keith self-consciously touches the long strand curling over his ear.

He can’t allow himself to be angry, especially with Shiro, but _oh_ , he wishes Curtis dead. Shiro needs guarding more than ever, and if Keith showed his anger and Shiro saw it, he might be lost forever. “On the moon…”

“On the moon,” Shiro barks out an unpleasant laugh, hiding his face in his hands with a noise that sounds suspiciously like a sob. “It’s all my fault. I’ve let things go on and on because I wanted to hide, it wasn’t fair to you or to Uncle Ulaz.” He rubs his face, wet eyes staring at the bread on the counter. “Uncle Ulaz should be in a hospital, with doctors to take care of him and help him feel better, and you -” 

It’s as if Shiro is suddenly seeing his old Ceiteach again, and he inhales sharply, marching away from the counter and throwing his arms around Keith. “Oh, Ceiteach,” he says, laughing once more, but it was his normal one again. “Listen to me, I’m being so silly. I’m so sorry.” 

Keith hugs him back, closing his eyes as he squeezes Shiro against them. The boundary between _Keith_ and _Shiro_ is growing bigger by the day, and it seems as if nothing can stop the divide anymore. “I love you, Shiro.” 

“And I love you, my Ceiteach.” Shiro kisses his hair, and Keith tries to summon a smile, but like every time before it, it falls flat, so he hides the attempt in the folds of Shiro’s shirt. “You’re a good child.” 

But he’s no longer a child, Keith thinks to himself as he leaves the kitchen, heart wound tight with wire as he holds his head high and finally confronts Curtis in the parlor. Something must be done about this, one way or the other, and Keith needs to try everything he can think of. 

The man dozes in their father’s chair, a leather bound book in one hand and a pipe in the other. On his wrist is their father’s watch, cleaned of any dirt and once more shimmering in the afternoon light outside their windows. 

“Cousin Curtis?” Keith asks primly; and then, louder when the man shows no sign of wakening, “Cousin Curtis?” 

Finally, Curtis shifts in their father’s seat, smacking his lips and glancing up at him with little but contempt in his eyes. “Well?” He asks impatiently, and Keith feels his anger spike. Keith shoves the emotion down deep, as he has to speak as politely as possible, but even just thinking about the shine of his eyes as he grins at Keith smugly or watches him across the table as he eats, he wants to stamp on him until he dies and see him rotting and festering on their father’s chair. 

“I decided to ask you, nicely, to please go away.” Keith says, hands tight by his sides as Curtis glances away from, thinking for a long moment. 

“Alright.” Curtis acknowledges. “You asked me.”

Keith grits his teeth. “Please, will you go _away_?” 

“No.” Curtis slowly stands up, grinning at Keith smugly as he towers over the younger boy. “As a matter of fact, in about a month from now, _who_ will still be here? You, or me?” 

If he stays any longer he’s going to vomit all over the wooden floors Shiro just scrubbed, so he escapes back into the house, scrubbing at his wet eyes as he pulls the gold watch chain out of his pocket, where he flings open his bedroom window and ties it thrice around the nail jutting out from underneath the windowsill. He keeps the window open to let in the fresh air, and rests his head against the sill as he listens to the sound of the wind blowing through the trees outside his window.

Keith stays there until his body feels no longer his own, just a vessel to hear the sound of the wind and breathe and blink without his command, fingertips numb from the evening chill setting in as Lance hums to himself on the windowsill. And when the lights in the house turn off and the only sound is the wind, and Shiro does not come to lay next to him as they do every night, Keith lets himself finally drift into the abyss with dried tear tracks down his cheeks. 

# SUNDAY

He’s tried. He’s tried so much. To find the right words, the right items, but Curtis’ power is just too strong. 

The ghost wears their father’s suit, sleeps in their father’s bed, smokes his pipe and glides his tonic all over his hair, and Shiro still does not see it. He obliges it, and pretends he is not like father. He looks at Keith like he is some strange thing, and when Keith tells him he loves him as he takes his breakfast alone, Shiro only smiles and says nothing. 

Keith lingers at the library window, the highest room in the whole manor, hand pressed against the glass as outside in the garden Curtis makes a joke, Shiro breaking into loud laughter that he can hear even this far away. He grimaces at the sight, and withdraws, pacing two times around the room and chanting an older prayer of protection, hearing Lance laugh behind him. Nothing from his book of spells is working - something has to work, _something_. 

As he climbs the steps down towards the kitchen, he reminds himself to be kinder to Uncle Ulaz. Keith feels sorry for him, as much like him, he’s spending more and more time in his room, taking both breakfast and lunch on a tray and only eating dinner in the dining hall under the abhorring eye of Curtis. 

Exiting through the back door so as not to seen by Curtis or Shiro, he takes a new leaf from the chestnut tree and puts it against Uncle Ulaz’s window, watching their uncle lying still in his dark room, cup of hot milk with honey long since gone cold still sitting on his tray, his soft egg with broken toast barely touched. 

"Will you make Uncle Julian a little soft cake for his lunch?" He asks a little after they come back inside the kitchen, windswept and flower petals in their hair to make lunch. 

“He’s busy now.” Curtis says with his mouth full, not lifting a finger to help Shiro as he bustles around the kitchen preparing the four of them their lunch and beginning on dinner preparations. It’s as if, in spending the morning in the garden with Curtis, Shiro forgot that a world exists beyond the two of them. “Run along and play.”

“Shiro -” 

“Takashi is too busy, your brother works like a damn slave.” Curtis holds out his cup of tea for it to be filled, and Shiro hurries to his side, dirt smudged along his cheekbone. 

Keith doesn’t move, not until Shiro smiles apologetically at him. “I’m sorry.” He says, already moving on to attend to the stove. “I have so much to do.” 

“But Uncle Ulaz is going to die.” Keith says plainly, but no one’s listening to him, so he takes his leave with another scream lodged in his throat. He doesn’t know what else to do for Uncle Ulaz, so he picks several flowers and replaces the old wilting ones in the empty vases by his seat in the kitchen, if he ever feels well enough to sit there again with the ghost haunting them. 

He attends dinner that night, but just barely, sitting there in tense silence as Curtis sighs when Uncle Ulaz accidentally spills his pasta sauce on his pants. “Can’t you feed him or something?” Curtis asks Shiro. “He’s got it all over himself again.” 

“I didn't mean to.” Uncle Ulaz looks close to tears, hand trembling wildly around his fork, and Shiro only twists his napkin and doesn’t say a word, bottom lip caught between his teeth. 

“Ought to wear a baby bib.” Curtis laughs cruelty, and even Shiro ends dinner as soon as Curtis decides he’s done eating. 

Keith waits in the kitchen for Shiro to reheat his dinner after Uncle Ulaz has been helped into bed. And he waits. And he waits. When the grandfather clock reads half past nine, he heads up the stairs, reaching out to turn Shiro’s doorknob, only for a hand to pull him back.

Curtis doesn’t say a word, only staring into the bedroom through the cracked door. Keith follows his gaze, past the collection of snow globes of foreign places on Shiro’s bureau and fresh flowers piled in vases, wind chimes and music boxes a collection of fluttering light sounds. 

Shiro’s heavy breathing is all to clear even with the sound, lying motionless in his bed with his teeth gritted in pain and sweat clinging to his brow. He’s had another episode. 

Keith’s moving before he even thinks it through, pushing open the door and throwing himself into the room, but Curtis simply tugs him back by his upper arm, hefting him out of the room effortlessly. “Don’t disturb him.” Curtis threatens, pulling him back from the door with a harsh jerk and putting himself between the two brothers. 

“He’s my brother.” Keith grits his teeth, flexing his fingers. “Move.” 

“He’s my dear relative as well.” Curtis closes the door firmly, gesturing sharply for him to keep his voice down, which Keith reluctantly does. “I’ve come all this way to take care of my sickly cousin and his kid brother -” 

“I am _not_ a child.” Keith hisses. He hasn’t been a child since the morning he woke up with stickiness in his underwear and Shiro’s name resting on his tongue. He left childhood innocence behind and welcomed the world of adulthood, if it meant he could have Shiro in any way possible. 

Curtis tilts his head to the side. “If you say so.” He snorts, shaking his head as he walks away. “Don’t bother Takashi, or I’ll personally see to the discipline you so obviously lack. Takashi isn’t around to protect you right now.” With that, he disappears into their father’s room at the end of the hall, taking the dim light of the lantern with him. 

Keith fists his shorts, gritting his teeth as he stares down at their mother’s bunnies in the pitch black hallway. Curtis moves around in their father’s room preparing for bed, Uncle Ulaz coughs in his sleep, Shiro’s heavy breathing - it all fills the tilting hallway until he’s unsure of which way is down or up. He yearns to sneak into Shiro’s room and comfort him with a wet cloth over his forehead and soothe him by reading out loud _The Hobbit_ , but his spine shutters at the word _discipline_. He thought he left all these memories behind six years ago, but just their mother's tortoiseshell comb and their father's watch, something still lingers behind even if they're dead and gone. 

“Father,” he breathes to their ghosts. “Father, Shiro didn’t mean it. I’ll take responsibility for him, so please don’t send punish Shiro for it, it’s bad for his health and he’s already so weak from the chill, please I’ll take whatever punishment instead…” 

  
  


# MONDAY

“Takashi,” Curtis yells from outside, the incessant pounding of the hammer finally coming to a stop. Without the rattling of their cousin’s attempt to fix the step on the kitchen's stair, Keith could finally hear the bubble of the pot on the stove, Shiro’s knife hitting the cutting board as he slices the onions and Uncle Ulaz’s murmuring as he writes in his spot. Curtis has been busy all morning trying to fix the back step, so Uncle Ulaz has finally felt well enough to leave his room. “Takashi!” 

“I cannot work here if Curtis is going to _talk_ all the time.” Uncle Ulaz mutters, his pen scoring a deep line into his paper as he barely bothers with glancing up. Keith hums, playing with Red’s paws from where he’s lying on his stomach underneath the kitchen table. 

“This is just too much.” Curtis continues to complain, and Shiro sighs gently, placing down the knife and moving to open the door between the kitchen and the backyard. 

“What now?” His older brother asks kindly, yet only Keith can detect the thin strand of annoyance. Shiro really is too sweet, especially when he's still tired from last night. 

Curtis rattles the box Keith buried underneath the step years ago, filled with small marbles and animal skulls and coins. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

Shiro only smiles in confusion, so Curtis takes that as incentive to shove the box into his chest. “Look at it. Takashi.” He orders, and when Shiro delays for a moment, his voice grows more furious. “Look at it. Look at it!”

Finally, Shiro glances down, shrugging with another smile over Uncle Ulaz’s shout of _Tell that fool to stop his bellowing!_ as he takes the box gently. He knows how important these things are for Keith. “Yes,” he says slowly. “I suppose it belongs to Keith.”

Curtis snatches the box back, frowning so deeply that by all laws it should stick. “It doesn’t _belong_ to Keith or anything like that.” He says sharply. “This is _money_. There are forty silver coins in here, Takashi, this is outrageous.” 

Shiro chuckles with another aborted shrug. “I know, I was there when he buried them. He likes to bury things.” 

“He has no right to bury things.” Curtis snaps. “It’s not his money, he has no right to hide it.” 

“No harm is done.” Shiro frowns. From where he’s lying on the floor, Keith can tell that his older brother is honestly puzzled on why Curtis is so angry. 

“How do you know there isn’t more? How do you know that crazy kid hasn’t buried thousands of dollars where we’ll never find them?” Keith quirks his head at the question, dimly noticing Shiro doing the same thing. 

Then Shiro smiles again, brushing his hands on his apron. “He likes to bury things.” 

For a moment, both of them just stare at each other, one in contempt and the other in confusion, before Curtis turns on his heel and marches back into the yard with a quiet, “Goddamn kid.” Shiro scrambles after him, neatly stepping over the broken step. “How’s the step coming?” His brother asks brightly, and Keith slowly pulls himself out from underneath the table to watch them better. 

Curtis is quiet for a minute, the kind of quiet that reminds Keith of their father. He goes still against the tile underneath his palms, and Shiro clasps his trembling hands behind his back. Finally, he deigns Shiro with a sharp, “I need more nails.” 

Shiro scrambles towards the box, clumsily ripping it open in an attempt to please the storm before it arrives. “Here, just take some of these,” he shoves a handful of silver coins into Curtis’ hand, paying no mind to the ones slipping out of his hand and hitting the ground. Keith wonders for a moment if Curtis will drop to his hands and knees and scramble after it; he would very much like to see that kind of scene. 

“Hey, hey.” Curtis soothes, pocketing the coins and stepping up to Shiro with a hand on his shoulder. It works, Shiro relaxing slightly with a smile already forming on his face, until Curtis says heedlessly, “I can buy half the market with this, Shiro -” 

“Please don’t call me that.” Shiro says too loudly, no smile in sight as he stares Curtis right into his eyes with an empty expression, pushing off Curtis’s hand. Keith watches them with his breath abated, hands tight over his chest with something light soaring inside him. Only Shiro would allow him to call him that. 

Curtis seems to realize the mistake he made, because he draws nearer, brow furrowed in false sympathy. “Takashi,” he amends, and Shiro smiles back with his mouth closed. “You shouldn’t keep that much money in the house. And you should have a phone.”

The smile wilts. “It became…troublesome.” He says haltingly, gently taking Curtis’ hands within his own. “Thank you for fixing the step.” 

“Shiro.” His older brother’s head whips back, eyes widening at Keith standing in the doorway, his shaking smile forcibly widening at whatever expression Keith is baring. “Uncle Ulaz is calling you.” 

Uncle Ulaz has been doing no such thing. 

“I’ll be right there.” Shiro detangles from Curtis’ hands, rushing past Keith into the kitchen, careful not to touch him even accidentally. Keith lingers in the doorway, staring at Curtis with a blank expression, before he grasps the doorknob and shuts it, locking them safely inside until Curtis comes back from the village. 

When he turns around, Shiro is standing in the center of the kitchen, hands braced on the table as Red sits on their china cabinet, tail flicking every few moments. Dust motes float across the quiet kitchen, even Uncle Ulaz’s ever present murmuring silent for once as Shiro takes several practiced deep breaths. 

Then Shiro straightens up, brushing his hair back with a hoarse laugh. “You weren’t the only one to ever call me Shiro, you know.” 

“No,” Keith acknowledges with an incline of his head. “I was not.” 

Lance was a very beautiful boy. Perhaps even more beautiful than Shiro, it pains him to admit. He had a way of charming an entire room into silence, his laugh always the loudest and his smile always the brightest. The small town was too small for him, and he was too bright for a place painted in grey. 

Perhaps that’s why Shiro liked him so much.

He leaves Shiro then, with the stifling taste of regret, running down the hidden paths in the trees towards the village. Keith thinks of Curtis, wracking his brain for a spell to turn him into a fly so he could drop him into a spider’s web and watch him helplessly be devoured. He wishes Curtis dead. He wishes Curtis would turn into a tree with bark growing over his mouth or for him to be buried under the steps where his box of silver coins was once safe, so that Shiro could walk over him everyday while grabbing their vegetables and that his hole in the dirt would be filled. He dislikes having the dirt be empty so. 

Ignoring the looks of hatred piling on his back, he follows Curtis’ automobile with filthy knees and sunken eyes until he stops by the Sandra house, watching him park his automobile in front of Hunk’s to buy a paper before heading over to the general store and sitting on the benches with the rest of them. Keith scoffs, fingering the silver coin he picked off of the ground earlier as he casually strolls down the road, scratching it along the bright red of Curtis automobile without a single glance down. 

When he comes back to the house, Shiro is working out in the yard, Uncle Ulaz’s distant figure flickering in the window. “Where have you been?” Shiro asks him without glancing up. 

“Out wandering.” He answers simply, sitting down in the dirt next to Shiro and resting his head on his shoulder. Shiro flinches. 

“I think we need to forbid your wandering.” Shiro says slowly, carefully. “It’s time you quieted down a little.”

Keith draws back, something cold rattling between his ribs. “ _We_?”

“Takashi!” Uncle Ulaz calls from the kitchen, and Shiro pushes him away, climbing to his feet and striding back to the kitchen with his head raised high. Keith scrambles after him, his heart in his throat as he hovers in the doorway. “Takashi, it is time I had a box.” Uncle Ulaz says slowly, leaning back in his chair with a bright smile on his weathered face. “If I had a box, that dreadful young man could not touch my papers, and if I need to see them, I could simply take them out when need be.”

“Curtis is not a bad man.” Shiro says sharply though Keith is unsure if it’s meant to him or Uncle Ulaz. His brother crouches down, digging through the bottom cabinet with a grunt. “I never realized until lately how wrong I was to let you and Uncle Ulaz hide here with me.” He jerks open another cabinet, movements too aggravated. “We should have faced the world and tried to live normal lives.”

“Is that Mother’s brooch?” It is. It’s pinned to the lapel of Shiro’s dress shirt, a dark silver with a chain across the top buttons. 

Shiro ignores the question with a fervent air to him. “We should have been living like other people. Uncle Ulaz should be in a hospital, with doctors and nurses to do what I can’t do for him.”

“It would certainly not be kind to put Uncle Ulaz in a hospital.” Keith raises his eyebrows. 

His older brother spins with a box in his hands, wobbling a smile in place. “You should…You should have a girlfriend!” He pants, chest rising in and out rapidly. 

Silence reigns. Keith tilts his head back, considering Shiro for a long moment with a blank expression, who only moves over to Uncle Ulaz with the shaking smile still in place. "Here’s your box, Uncle Ulaz." 

Uncle Ulaz glances up with a hum. “A box?”

“So you have somewhere to put your papers.” Shiro gently puts it down on the desk next to him. “This way, Curtis won’t be about to touch your papers, though I don’t see why he would. He’s a very kind man.”

"He is dishonest.” Uncle Ulaz scowls. “His father was dishonest. Both my brothers were dishonest. If he tries to take my papers you must stop him; I cannot permit tampering with my papers and I will not tolerate intrusion. You must tell him this, Takashi. He is a bastard." 

The air goes quiet. It’s the word they always knew, but which nobody would ever say out loud. That Curtis Aodhán is a bastard, the result of Arthur Aodhán sleeping with the help instead of his lawfully wedded wife. 

Shiro steps back quietly, hands twisting around each other. “I know that it would be awfully unkind to put Uncle Ulaz in a hospital.” He says softly. “But if I have to I’ll -” Shiro cuts himself off, turning back to the stove and busying himself with the bubbling pot. “Should I make some dip from the canned mushrooms?” 

Keith stands there, utterly still, listening to what Shiro had almost uttered out loud. Time is running shorter, tightening in iron wires around the house and crushing him to death. 

He opens his mouth to say something, he doesn’t know what, but then he hears the familiar purr of Curtis’ steps treading down the hallway and into the kitchen. The demon-ghost hesitates in the doorway, before smiling broadly. “Well well well, everybody’s here.”

“Curtis!” Shiro hurries past him, smiling beatifically at the older man like a young schoolboy. “How was the village?” 

“Lovely as always.” Curtis smiles over Shiro’s shoulder as he drops his automobile keys on the table, both of their cold eyes meeting. “You should come with me, next time.” 

And with those dreadful words, he envelops Shiro into a hug, both of them embracing with the air of long lost lovers. Blood drips from Keith’s hands, his jagged nails tearing into the worn callouses of his palm and pooling down his filthy fingers. How dare that _demon -_

“Perhaps I will.” Shiro laughs, and Keith can’t take any more of this. With a scream lodged in his throat, he pushes them aside, running with all his might through the open kitchen door, ignoring Shiro’s worried shout as blood and tears are whipped away by the wind. 

Keith hits his knees in Shiro’s garden, scrambling to the abandoned basket full of vegetables and his gardening gloves. Keith tips it over, the carrots and greens hitting the ground in a spray of dirt as he takes the empty basket and takes off into the woods. 

His hands and knees bleed freely, and April’s chill sets into his bones, but none of it matters. None of it matters at all, except that Shiro embraced Curtis with a smile on his lips. The imagine is stained in his brain, burning like the tears behind his eyes. He gathers the materials, the sticks and leaves and glass, all for the sake of his one last final spell. It seems impossible to banish Curtis, but it must be done. Before it’s too late. 

He has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to save Shiro he has to he has to he has to save him if he doesn’t save him then then then then Shiro will _LEAVE HIM SHIRO CAN’T LEAVE HIM NO NO NO NO NO_

“You’re being weird again.” 

Keith’s chest heaves, the taste of blood pooling in his mouth and the cuts on his hands stinging. “I don’t need you to tell me that.” He laughs hoarsely, watching him balance on the fallen trunk in front of where Keith’s sitting on his knees. 

Lance hums, tilting his head to the side. “Nah, I definitely think you need to hear it.” He wobbles a little bit on the tree, arms outstretched as he balances on his blue Jumping Jack Shoes he bragged about at school, though Keith knew they were for poor kids. He used to punch the people who made fun of Lance for it, even if Keith wore the same shoes his bullies did. 

“I mean,” Lance says, swinging one leg out exaggeratedly. “You’re freaking out because of this Curtis guy, right? You’re being silly. And weird.” 

“Says you.” Keith says fondly, remembering the day Lance decided to befriend him, marching up to him with Hunk in tow and his crooked teeth set in a blinding grin. Keith was an old money Aodhán, money founded on taking advantage of people down on their luck and someone who knew anger as intimately as a bed mate. Lance was a poor Cuban immigrant with parents who couldn’t afford to feed all of them with the debt they owed, who came off as too much and wanted to be a greaser like his older brothers. By all rights, they shouldn’t have been friends. By all rights, they should have hated each other for their difference in status. But they were children, and they loved each other in the way only childhood friends did. 

His voice cracks, tears forming in his eyes. “I miss you _so_ much, Lance.” 

“…You’re a funny guy, Keith.” The perpetual eleven year old crouches down, folding his arms over his knees and cocking his head at him. “I miss you too, buddy.” Lance slowly stands up, taking several great steps back. “For what it’s worth, I do think you really do feel something for what happened to me. So I’m grateful for that.”

Lance raises his hands high above his head, palms raised up towards the sun. “I just wished you didn’t hide my murder like you did.” 

With that, Lance cartwheels down the tree trunk, legs flipping over his head as he laughs to the sky, childhood innocence captured forever in this brief memory, and then he’s gone with one final flip, his giggles echoing through the trees like a ghost cursed to roam the Earth for eternity. 

When he comes back to himself, he’s standing in the darkness of the yard, the basket dropped at his feet as he watches Shiro smile through the brightly lit window, hand in hand with Curtis as they dance to the melody playing on the turntable, wearing a waistcoat and a purple undershirt. Keith pats at his face vacantly, dimly aware of the dried tear tracks down his cheek. 

Leaning down, he picks up the basket numbly, stumbling upstairs to his bedroom. He places the basket at the foot of his bed, staring out the window at the large moon, still hearing Lance's laughter echoing in his ears. 

On the moon, there is no Curtis. There’s no villagers and there’s no intruders and there's no ghosts, it’s just him and Shiro, forever and always.

 _Since I can't remember when_ , the turntable croons, barely covering the sounds of their laughter as Keith treads on light feet down the hall towards their mother’s room. The warmth of the downstairs cannot touch him, for he is cold and still like the dead. 

His shoes and socks hit the floor carelessly, shortly followed by his mud-stained shorts and shirt. In just his underwear, he opens their mother’s closet with an empty expression, pushing aside the numerous bright daily dresses for her favorite black cocktail gown. He yanks it off the rack, slipping into it and ignoring the way the material folds strangely around his chest and strangles his shoulders. _It's been a long, long time._ Their mother always wore her black bolero jacket with this dress, so he slips it over his shoulders, covering the unfitting fabric easily. _You'll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you._

Keith sits at her dressing table, bunching up his hair in a messy bun, flyway strands escaping and sticking out at odd angles as he jams their mother’s tortoiseshell comb to hold it in place. Their mother’s white gloves and nude stockings slip down his limbs, bunching around his knees and wrists, but he ignores it all to buckle their mother’s pearls around his neck like a collar, burning a circle around his neck. _Or just how empty they all seemed without you._

The lipstick in his hand smears around his forever unsmiling mouth, crimson wax jagging down his chin and jaw as he stares at his reflection. _So kiss me once then kiss me twice,_ he mouths along to the lyrics, scoring a deep line into his cheek like a wound. There’s footsteps up the stairs as the music is cut before the song is over, but Keith continues to mutely sing, smudging the blush all over his cheeks as he ignores the world around him, it's only him and his reflection and the song playing on repeat. 

_Then kiss me once again_. Keith sits back after doing the same with the eyeshadow, placing his gloved hands against the mirror in reverence. 

“Mother,” he coos to Krolia Aodhán, ready for yet another socialite while her sons stand out in the hallway ready for their father’s discipline, he's playing the violin for her but she never looks up at him, never ever nothing he does ever catches her attention - “Mother, look, I’m you. Am I pretty enough yet? Will you love me now?” 

He giggles, sharp and high as he steps away from the mirror, staggering on his stocking clad feet out of their mother’s bedroom and down the hallway. To Shiro’s. _It's been a long, long time._

Slipping through the door, he hovers over Shiro’s sleeping form, still giggling quietly with his expression completely blank. Tears run down his face, blurring the blue of the eye shadow and the red of the blush together. “Father,” he whispers to Shiro, slowly climbing onto the bed, arms braced over his sleeping brother. “Father, look how pretty I am. Am I prettier than Mother? Will you love me now?” 

He ducks his head down, face inches away from Shiro. “Father, I’m going to take charge, like you always told me to.” He giggles again, hiccuping softly. “Will you love me now that I’m prettier than Mother’s bones?” He laughs louder, sliding off Shiro’s still form and onto the cold floor. “Will you love me now I’m a girl?” 

Splaying his limbs out on the floor, his laughs slowly die off as he stares up at the crown molding, tears drying up as he fades into utter numbness. “Father,” he croaks. “Father, why didn’t you love me?” 

_Long, long time_ the song finally finishes in his mind, closing his eyes to block out the world as he loses himself to the recesses of the house.

Keith stays on Shiro’s floor until the crack of dawn, dried makeup and tears clinging to his face as he listens to Shiro’s steady breathing. When sunlight starts filtering into Shiro’s bedroom, reflecting off his glass windchimes and casting a rainbow across the wooden floors and Keith’s legs, he pulls himself to his feet and leaves the room silently, closing his own bedroom door behind him and shedding the clothes like the dead skin of a snake. The makeup is wiped off with a handkerchief, the tortoiseshell comb placed on the bedside table. 

Laying down on the bed, Keith exhales softly, traces of blood like lipstick clinging to his mouth as he clasps his hands over his stomach, finally laid to rest like all other Aodháns before him.

  
  


# TUESDAY

His purple rimmed eyes flutter open an hour later to Curtis shouting for Shiro, continually calling for his older brother despite Shiro being outside working in the garden. Slowly, he unclasps his hands, flexing his fingers out numbly as he sorts out his hazy memories. 

Sitting up, he stares blankly at his bare feet. Curtis’ shouts finally quiet down when he realizes Shiro can’t hear him, and through his window, Keith can see the two of them talking, Shiro’s hand resting on Curtis’ elbow with a familiarly that sickens him. The only ones who Shiro ever touched like that was Keith and Lance. 

Keith’s face curdles up in disgust, turning away to get dressed for the day. At the last minute, he slips their mother’s tortoiseshell comb in his pocket - it’s already been removed from its place, so it can never be put back. He’ll bury it later today. 

Glancing at the basket on the foot of the bed, Keith closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, muttering an incantation for protection. It’s time. 

He storms into Curtis’ room, face pinched in fury as he tears the blankets off the already made bed, dropping them carelessly to the floor. Keith dumps the basket of sticks and glass onto the bed, rusty metal pieces scattering across the sheets. But it’s not enough - _it’s not enough._

Curtis left his suitcase open on the floor, so he lugs it up and flips it over the bed, smearing the dirt all over the blankets in his rush to find the pair of gardening scissors he stole from Shiro. Just this once, just this once he’ll break the rules he put on himself to keep Shiro safe from him. It’s for Shiro’s sake, after all. 

“Leave,” he hisses at the shirts, stabbing the blade through the cloth with a furious growl. “Us. Alone!” The fabric tears apart in his hands, but he doesn’t stop until every article of Curtis’ is destroyed, taking whatever once belonged to their father back up to the attic. The pitcher for Curtis to freshen up in the morning, full of lukewarm water, gets dumped all over the bed, smashing it against the floor to be sure. 

He spots Curtis through the window, and his face goes blank, right as his hands grasp the curtains and yank them down to the ground with a resounding bang. Leaning over the dressing table, he flings everything of Curtis’ to the ground, heedless of the broken glass and porcelain that nicks at his legs. 

For a moment, he stares at his reflection in the mirror, face so pale that it seems as if he’s the ghost here, not Curtis. Right before he smashes it with the hammer from days ago. 

Again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again an

**d again and AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGA**

**IN AND AGAIN AN**

## D AGAIN AND AGA

# IN AND AGAIN 

Keith pants, bloody knuckles tight around the wooden handle of the hammer. The mirror is gone. And so will the ghost soon. 

He pockets the one thing of Curtis’ that he left untouched on purpose - their father’s watch, and leaves the room, face a shadow as he climbs back into his bed, closing his eyes with a sigh of relief. At last, it’s done. 

Birds chirp outside, the patter of Shiro’s familiar footsteps, the warmth of the sun hitting his right arm, the softness of the blanket underneath it. All of it merges together until it all belongs as one, with Keith resting in the center of the universe. 

Heavy breathing, tight with rage. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

Keith opens his eyes, flicking them over to his side. Standing by his bedside is Curtis and Shiro, Curtis’ face pale with rage as he holds a bundle of sticks in his hand. Shiro smiles nervously, fiddling with the edge of one of Curtis’ ripped shirts in his hands. He doesn’t like the nervous look on Shiro’s face, so in an attempt to cheer him up; “The Cicuta maculata is the water hemlock, one of the most poisonous of wild plants if taken internally. The Apocynum cannabinum is not a poisonous plant of the first importance, but -” 

“Stop it.” Curtis states very quietly, fingers twitching around the sticks. 

Keith glances away, but then changes his mind, switching his gaze over to Shiro. “May I have my lunch, Shiro?” 

“Of course.” Shiro smiles, but it falls off his face as Curtis clears his throat, settling into something more approaching. “But first you have to explain yourself to Cousin Curtis.” 

Keith feels cold. He sucks in a deep breath, staring at his older brother’s expression, but Shiro never changes his mind, only gently waiting for Keith to answer _Curtis_. 

His throat bobs. 

Sitting up, he pushes past Shiro and Curtis, ducking under the arms that reach to grab him. He walks downstairs into the kitchen, barely taking heed of Shiro’s mumble of, “Please don’t be angry Curtis, I’ll clean your room right away.”

The kitchen was filled with the scent of spice cookies - Shiro must have just cooked them, he muses when he spots them sitting on the cooling rack. He wonders if he could sneak one for him and Red to share. 

“Keith Akira Aodhán.” Curtis stomps into the room after him, loudly dumping the pile of sticks on the kitchen table. Keith dislikes the way he uses his full name, Curtis is not their father as he’s not buried underground just yet. He also wishes Curtis wouldn’t put the dirty sticks on Shiro’s clean kitchen table; perhaps that’s why Shiro looks so skittish. “I am going to give you one last chance to explain. Why did you make that mess in my room?” 

There’s no reason to answer him. He is not Shiro. 

Uncle Ulaz slams his pen down. “I cannot work in here if that young man is going to _talk_ all the time.”

“You too,” Curtis says very softly. "I have put up with enough from both of you. One of you buries money and makes a mess of my room, and the other one can’t even remember my damn name.”

“Curtis.” He says to Red sitting on the counter. He was the one who buried the money, yes, but he was not the one who couldn’t remember Curtis’ name. Poor Uncle Ulaz was the one who couldn't bury anything and couldn’t remember Curtis’ name. Keith should remember to be kinder to Uncle Ulaz. “Shiro, can Uncle Ulaz have a spice cookie with his dinner?"

Shiro laughs again, the strange, uncertain one that Keith doesn’t like at all. “This is all my fault.” That was his new way of thinking; Keith dislikes that, it's certainly not Shiro's fault that Uncle Ulaz couldn't remember Curtis' name. 

“Answer me, Keith.” He drums his fingers against the table, watching Curtis with an empty expression. 

“Leo, what you’re doing with those boys, it’s just not right. You are blessed with three young boys, while me and my wife have no children at all. Their petty squabbles are beneath you. To involve yourself in such a judicious manner, Leo…It’s just not right, Leo, it’s just not right -”

“Shut up.” Curtis grits out, forcing a smile. “Please”

“May I have my lunch, Shiro?” Keith asks lightly as his brother cleans the table almost frantically. Shiro doesn’t glance up from picking the sticks off the once clean table, and Keith frowns.

“- I will not be told to shut up by my own brother. My wife and I will leave your house Leo, if that’s truly what you desire. I will ask you to reflect, however…” Uncle Ulaz pauses, shaking hands held in the air. His face trembles, as if he’s on the verge of something he can’t come back from,, and he says very, very slowly, “Curtis, when are you leaving?”

Curtis tilts his head back, silent for a moment. “I’m not leaving.” He finally says. “I’m staying.” 

“This is my fault. This is all my fault.” Keith stares with wide eyes as Shiro drops the sticks in his hands back on the table, covering his face with a sharp inhale. 

Shiro’s starting to cry. 

After all these years, Shiro’s crying. Not once has his brother cried since the day he emerged from his room with a smile on his face and dried tear tracks down his cheeks. Never once has the tears made it farther than a wet sheen in his eyes. 

“Evil!” Keith launches himself out of his seat, fisting a handful of dirt and throwing it at Curtis’ face. “You are a ghost and a demon. You don’t belong here, you never did, get out!” He nearly shrieks it, tempted to beat him with the sticks on the table right here and now. 

“Ceiteach, stop!” Shiro grabs his arm, gently leading him away from the table with a concerned touch on his shoulder, face pale. 

“What the hell -” Curtis steps closer, face rapidly reddening, but Uncle Ulaz points his finger into his chest and stops him right in his tracks. 

“Don’t touch my papers,” Uncle Ulaz shouts, a vein bulging in his head. “You get away from my papers, you bastard!”

Curtis throws up his hands. “This is a crazy house. Takashi, this is an absolute crazy house.” 

“We took you in out of the courtesy and respect of our relatives who once severed all contact with us, despite your dubious parentage, but you have not only disrespected me, but all other Aodháns that came before us, you who you have received the honor of our last name despite having younger half brothers with Arthur’s lawfully wedded wife.” 

For the first time, Curtis’ mask drops into an expression of pure hatred, glaring with gritted teeth at Uncle Ulaz, but it’s fixed in just a moment with something just teetering on frustration. “I’ve had enough of this. It’s all been forgotten, Takashi and I -”

“You have forgotten _yourself_ , to take such a tone with me.” Uncle Ulaz snaps back without hesitating. “Please be _extremely_ quiet now.” 

Curtis grits his teeth. “Not until I’m done with Keith!”

“My nephew, Keith Akira Aodhán,” Uncle Ulaz says with a great effort. “Died in an orphanage of neglect during his brother’s trial for murder. But he is of very little consequence to my book, so we will be done with this.”

All Curtis can do is gape, staring at Uncle Ulaz with pure confusion. “He’s sitting right here!”

“ _Enough_!” Uncle Ulaz shouts. “You must either be quiet or you must leave this room!” 

“This is a madhouse.” Curtis turns to Shiro, frowning at the younger man. “The sooner you’re out of here, the better.”

Shiro very kindly ignores that comment, twisting his apron anxiously. “You look very tired, you should go rest until lunch.” 

Curtis furrows his brows. “I’m not going anywhere until _something_ is done about this boy.”

“Why should anything be done?” Shiro’s voice cracks. “I said I would clean your room!”

“Takashi, why aren’t you going to punish him?!” 

Keith doesn’t dare blink, staring straight ahead with his shoulders shaking. The world goes very still and quiet, until the only thing he can hear is the rustle of the tree branches, there’s mud clinging to his hands as Shiro cries silently next to him, both of them digging into the dirt with their bare underneath the arch of the tree. 

“Punish me? Punish me?” He asks, voice shaking. The sound of the creek bubbles in his ears, blood sticking to his chubby knees as he presses his forefinger against his mouth. Silence. “You mean send me to my bed without my dinner?”

Uncle Ulaz shakes his head. “You are a very selfish man, Leo.”

“Stop it, Ulaz.” 

“It’s not fitting for men of dignity to reproach, threaten -”

“Please -”

“When children have had a squabble -”

“Shut up.”

“You lose _stature_ , Leo. You _lose stature_.”

“Stop it.”

“You _lose stature_ , Leo.”

“Not another word, please.”

“ _You lose stature, Leo. You lose stature, Leo!_ ”

“ _You hear me, Ulaz?!_ ”

“You’re a ghost and a demon.” Keith breaks, glaring up at Curtis through his eyelashes, only for Shiro to slam his hands against the table, glaring at Keith with tears in his eyes.

“Keith, enough, you are making this worse.” 

The world goes silent.

He’s cold.

Ice wraps around his throat, suffocating him to a silent death as he wheezes, his vision dimming around him. The colors bleed out his sight, leaving the world grey and cold, until Keith can't even feel his own body. 

“Answer me.”

Keith shallowly gasps for air, nails raking down the table. He needs, he needs -

“Stop it, stop it, Keith, please just stop it -”

“Answer me!”

He screams.

Grabbing the sticks, he throws them down on the ground, shouldering Shiro aside and darting out the back door. Dirt churns underneath his feet, tears stinging against his eyes as he runs who knows where, Red racing at his heels as they escape the towering manor behind them. 

Eventually, he slows, waist high grass tickling his legs and the afternoon sun beating down on his back. The wind blows through the meadow, grass blades rustling like an ocean’s wave, and Keith looks up at the cloudless sky, his dark hair whipped around his face as he lets the blinding sun burn away his tears. 

Then, he turns, slowly at first. Then with more confidence, until he’s striding deeper into the woods with shoulders set. Red breaks away from him with a twitch of her tail, her knowing eyes staring into his for a moment before she bounds away, lost between the grass. 

His dirt stained legs stop at his hiding place, swallowing heavily at the one item among countless unearthed, right on top of his resting place. Slowly, he kneels down, gingerly taking the small item and clasping it in his hand. 

“Ah,” he says very quietly. 

Keith’s most precious protection smell has given him a sign. He laughs hoarsely, bowing over until his forehead rests on the dirt, holding the small item against his chest. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything, only thinks to himself, thinks and thinks and thinks. They’re sitting at the table, the one they would sit at for outside luncheons on days such as these, when his mother discarded her dark dresses for pastels and flowers and smiled thinly with pink lips instead of red. Their father sits at the head, always dressed in his impeccable suit and stern frown as he taps his wine glass once, for that is all it needs to gather their attention, their mother a perfect presentation of grace as she sits at his left with her white satin gloved hands crossed daintily over her lap. The Uncle Ulaz of before the illness smiles kindly at his wife, a laugh playing around both of their mouths as he kisses the back of her hand playfully. Next to him, Shiro folds his napkin in increasingly bizarre origami shapes, the corner of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he focuses intently on it. On the other side of him, Sven kicks his leg impatiently, whining loudly as he plays with his straw, slurping loudly at his lemonade obnoxiously so he could scamper off and play already. And Keith sits between his brothers in his own proper place, the echoes of a smile on his face as he listens to them talk above his head. 

“You should have a new book.” 

Keith slowly raises his head. 

Everything once comforting from the scene has faded, leaving just the old abandoned table, knocked over with weeds growing over it. Yet their mother and father’s seat remains standing up, fully embellished and kept up like it was six years ago, with their parents still sitting their in their luncheon best. 

Keith follows their father’s gaze towards the tree where father’s book once was nailed to, now bereft of any kind of protection. “Krolia, should our Keith not have a new book?’ 

His gaze catches in his throat as their mother smiles softly at him, her pearl necklace shining in the sun. “Keith should have anything he wants, my dear. Our most beloved son must have anything he desires.” 

Nothing can describe the fluttery emotions building in his chest, swimming around and around as their father graces Keith with the kind of affection that only Sven ever received. Never Keith, never troublemaker Keith. “Keith Akira, we love you.” 

_We love you. We love you. We love you._

“You must _never_ be punished.” Their father declares strongly, every word as solid and binding as the laws declared in the bible. “Krolia, you are to see to it that our most loved son is never punished.” 

As one, they glance at her. 

She gently puts her teacup down, not saying a word. Her hair slips free of her tortoiseshell comb, black strands sticking to the back of her neck as violet eyes look into violet eyes. 

“Mother…?” He asks quietly, breathes coming in too fast. But still she doesn’t say anything, her violet obscured by red as she chokes, burst blood vessels fading the luminescence of her eyes, thumping on her chest futility as frothy foam and bloody bile spill from her lips and stain her purple evening dress. Keith’s standing in the doorway, watching as Shiro calmly reaches over and takes the sugar bowl in front of Sven’s still, small hand, turning into the kitchen without a backwards glance behind him. 

She falls to the floor with a loud thump, followed by their father and their uncle. Their aunt is already dead, vacant eyes staring at the portrait of the main family and bloody snot streaked underneath her nose. Uncle Ulaz rasps hoarsely, eyes still open as he clutches at his chest, while their father heaves, more and more vomit closing his throat off from his precious air. 

But she holds his gaze, wide with horror and desperation. 

Never once did she look at him with love. 

Keith closes his eyes, fading from the past as he clutches the small item in his hand. Then he pockets it, climbing to his feet and wiping his face roughly with the end of his sleeve. 

It’s vital that he goes to dinner tonight. It’s unthinkable, he thinks as he begins the long trek home, that they all sit at the dinner table, passing trays of food and talking amongst each other without Keith being present. But before he leaves, he still has their father's watch, and he dreads bringing in a cursed thing back into the house. He cranks the handle until it creaks, the hands coming to a stop, and at least one thing is released from Curtis' touch. Keith debates burying it for a moment, but instead he leaves it laid out across the turned over table with reverent hands, waving goodbye to the watch only once before going home. 

He comes to a stop in the great field before the house, watching the embers of twilight behind it and the great large lit windows and towering stoops; it’s a good house, and soon it will be clean and fair again. Red butts against his leg, chirping at him curiously. 

“For I tell you, I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God,” he whispers, swallowing heavily. “Stay out here, okay? I’ll come get you when it’s safe.” 

Red trills once, rubbing her cheek against his leg before she gently pads away back towards the woods. Keith brushes his hair out of his face, taking a couple more deep breaths, before he finally steps over the threshold, quietly following the light sounds of the piano from Shiro’s turntable and the clinks of utensils. Today was meatloaf with peas, plates of potato salad and breaded rolls piled in bowls lining down the center of the grand table. It reminds him of one of Uncle Ulaz’s ramblings for his never ending novel; _Chapter thirty-six, it was a beautiful meal._

Shiro looks very nice, wearing a purple button up with the sleeves pushed to his elbows and dark grey slacks. He glances up when Keith enters the room, some emotion Keith can’t name flooding his eyes before Curtis derisively snorts. “There he is.”

Then Shiro only frowns in disapproval at him. “Wash your face and hands. Get ready for dinner, Cousin Curtis is already angry with you.” Keith’s face curdles up like sour milk. 

Curtis points his fork at him. “Your brother and I have had enough of your hiding and destroying and temper. We’re going to have a long talk after I enjoy this beautiful meal that your brother made for me.” He shares a smile with Shiro, and Keith isn’t sure what makes his stomach churn more; the fork being pointed at him, or Shiro’s easy affection with him. He wishes that Curtis would put food on the fork and then swallow it and strangle himself. 

He stands still for too long, as Shiro swallows his bite of meatloaf and musters a fake smile at him. “Run along, Ceiteach. Your dinner will be cold.” 

Keith will not eat dinner sitting at the table anyway when Curtis can watch him, but he moves anyway because Shiro asked him to, walking along the table towards the door to the kitchen. 

“Let me ask you a question, Keith.” 

He stops in his tracks, not looking anywhere but straight ahead. He will not give Curtis the satisfaction of eye contact. 

“Why don’t you like me?” Curtis sets down his fork, acting in just a way to seem as if he’s genuinely hurt by this, but Keith sees through his disguise. He wonders if it's exhausting, continually pretending like the human guise he's wearing is his own. 

“Curtis…” Shiro starts so gently, but Curtis rudely interrupts whatever Shiro's going to say with barely a thought. 

“It’s okay, I’m just asking.” He reassures Shiro without even looking at him, cold gaze pinned on Keith’s back. “Why don’t you like me?”

After a long pause of silence where Keith refuses to say anything, Shiro weakly offers, “He likes you.”

“No, he doesn’t. I think I know why. Lord knows I have my theories.” Curtis slowly picks up his fork again, scooping up a pile of peas and loudly chewing. He swallows, still staring at Keith’s unmoving form. “But you never did give me a chance, did you Keith?”

“He likes you.” Shiro’s voice breaks, his head down as he limpy dips his meatloaf in sauce. 

Curtis rolls his eyes. Shiro can’t see him break his mask for this moment, but Keith can, he always could. Then the mask is back on, his sickly sweet voice scolding them. “I came here to offer assistance, and guidance, and by the look of things, I got here just in time. But what did I get in return?” Shiro shivers, shoulders bowed and eyes pinched tightly shut. “Not even a thank you.”

Both of them flinch. Curtis sighs, waving him along as he takes another bite of his meatloaf, and Keith escapes from the dining hall to the kitchen, the never ending _talking_ still floating down the hallway. All these words staining their walls and floors and ceilings will take him ages to scrub away, if they ever will. He feels like he's too late, like Curtis has finally dug his roots in deep enough to penetrate the last of Keith's spells. 

Once he’s in the kitchen, he turns on his heel, entering the hallway and up the stairs, past the ever seeing portraits of their ancestors, past the doors to his and Shiro’s room. In his pocket is their mother’s tortoiseshell comb and the small unearthed item, Red is safely outside, all the pieces are in place, and all that is left is the single, last, chess piece. 

Silently, he slips into their father’s bedroom, walking right up to the the bedside table. The room is tilted, the mirror and curtains gone, bare of anything as their father’s things are hidden away in the attic. All that fills the space now is Curtis, Curtis’ shaving cream, Curtis’ neatly folded clothes, Curtis’ lies and whispers. Curtis’ pipe. 

He eyes the gently smoking pipe left on the ashtray, gingerly picking it up and admiring the well made wood in the dark room. Then he drops it, right into the wastebasket where the soft newspapers he shouldn’t have brought into the house lay. 

Keith lets out a sigh, his shoulders sagging as he watches the few embers drifting up into the air. Something is bubbling in his chest, building and building, and he covers his mouth for a moment, fighting himself. When he takes his hand away, his face is once again blank, but the corners of his mouth twitch wildly, like an animal baying to be set free. 

“What took you so long.” Curtis bites out when he walks in the dining hall, taking his seat silently at Shiro’s side. He stays silent, staring down at his full plate while Uncle Ulaz weakly picks at the napkin tucked under his chin, looking quite pitiful. Keith feels sorry for him.

Curtis laughs. “Forget it, don’t even say a word.” His laugh keeps getting louder and louder, bouncing off the walls and filling the room with its noise. “I just want to enjoy this meal in peace.”

Shiro laughs quietly with him, vacant eyes stuck on his plate. His food is barely touched, just an indescribable circles of mush and torn apart bread and meat. 

Keith watches him, heart in his throat. His brother looks like he did when he was barely nineteen and bringing food up the backstairs for Keith, lost and oh so small. 

“The Amanita phalloides,” he begins quietly, hands shaking in his lap. “Holds three poisons. There is amanitin, which works slowly and is most potent.”

“Enough.” Curtis snaps, not looking up from his plate.

Keith swallows. “There is phalloidin, which acts at once, and attacks the liver and kidneys. Phailin, which dissolves red corpuscles, although it is the least potent -”

“I mean it, I won’t stand for it.” Curtis slams his fork down

“The first symptoms do not appear until seven to twelve hours after eating -”

“ _NOT ANOTHER GODDAMN WORD_!”

The table quiets, Curtis’ glare boring into his face. But Keith never looks at him, only Shiro. Only ever Shiro. 

His brother sits, a picture of perfect stillness as his face spasms, staring straight ahead with his eyes wet and chest shuddering. His ever present smile twitches, fighting between tears and laughter. 

“Shiro?” Keith asks. 

A desperate laugh escapes Shiro as Curtis lunges for Keith, hands tight around his neck and yanking him from his chair, the wood frame toppling against the ground with a loud _BOOM_. 

Uncle Ulaz forces himself to his feet, his entire body trembling with the very effort of it as he yells. “Leo, stop it! Leave Keith alone!” 

Keith screams, kicking his legs as he’s hauled out of the dining hall, spotting Shiro scramble out of his chair after him. “ _Spiritus Pucenta Proteg Me, Spiritus Pucenta Proteg Me, Spiritus Pucenta Proteg -”_

“Shut up!” Their father shouts, squeezing around his neck until Keith gags, spit running down his chin as he slams his feet into the floor, the walls, everywhere to slow them down. “Takashi has let you run wild for too long, I’m going to teach you some _discipline_.” 

The edges of the steps dig into his back as he’s dragged up the stairs, gasping shallowly as the grip around his neck lets go only to latch onto his hair. His nails dig into their father’s suited arm, shrieking at the top of his lungs as hundreds of their ancestors' eyes bore into them. “Father, stop!”

Shiro stumbles to the bottom of the stairs, shaking like a leaf and tear tracks down his cheeks as he stares at them with unseeing eyes. “Father,” he says very quietly. “Don’t hurt Keith, whatever he did I’m sure I can fix it. I’m sure, I, I…”

“Both of you, shut up!” Shiro’s mouth snaps shut at their father’s order, tears still running down his face as their father covers Keith’s mouth, the entire stairway going quiet. “I smell smoke.” 

Their father lets go of him, bounding up the stairs two at a time and leaving Keith shivering there, unable to do anything but murmur his prayers to himself over and over again. Shiro shakily climbs up next to him, gingerly holding his shoulders as if he was afraid to touch any bruises or belt marks. 

“My Ceiteach.” Shiro whispers gently, cupping his face. Keith leans into the hand, closing his eyes for a moment as he shudders on the steps, absorbing the moment with just the two of them. 

“Fire.” Curtis shouts from somewhere upstairs. Then his dress shoes slam down the stairs, screaming into their faces. “Takashi, it’s a fire!”

Shiro flinches away from his voice, still shaking in his purple shirt and hand wound tightly with Keith’s. “And you don’t have a damn phone!” Curtis grabs Shiro’s shoulders roughly, shaking him until his brother looks at him. “Put the money from the safe in a bag, okay? Don’t try and carry it out. I’ll go get some help!” Curtis crashes down the stairs and out the front door, slamming it shut with one small glimpse of the night sky. 

Shiro slowly lets go of Keith’s cheek, staggering to his feet with his face turned towards the faint glow of orange. His feet move, saddle shoes stumbling up the stairs, swaying from side to side with his fingers barely brushing against the curving wood banister. 

Distantly, there’s the sound of Curtis’ automobile's horn honking.

Carefully, he rolls himself over, gently standing up and following after Shiro, who stands in the doorway to their father’s room, chest pushing in and out as he watches the fire engulf the room. It burns up, Keith realizes, thinking of Their things in the attic. 

“We just cleaned it,” Shiro whispers. “It has no right to burn.”

Keith takes his hand. “Shiro.” He begins, but Shiro shakes his head, tears flying everywhere as he squeezes Keith’s hand. He leads his brother down the stairs quickly, hearing the sounds of wood buckling behind them. 

Shiro drops his hand when they descend to the bottom, head tilted back as he stands at the very bottom of the winder staircase, eyes on the detailed skylight. Smoke fills the stairway, a cough ripping it’s way out of Shiro’s chest, and Keith lunges, pulling him by his hand until they’re running down the hallway, the disgusting sounds of sirens echoing. 

“Uncle Ulaz?” Shiro yells, pounding on their uncle's door. “Uncle Ulaz, we have to leave.” 

He tries the knob, but it refuses to turn. Locked. 

“Uncle Ulaz!” Shiro tries again, throwing his shoulder against the door futility, before - 

_BAM_

Shiro gasps, throwing himself backwards from the loud noise. They just broke through the front door. 

Before Keith can do anything, Shiro grabs his elbow and takes off running, away from help and towards the safety of the kitchen, waving a hand in front of him to dispel the heavy smoke. Keith slams through the kitchen door first, wiping his hand down the light switches until the room goes dark, Shiro swiftly shutting the door behind them and crouching underneath the windowsill. Keith hurries to slide in next to him, Shiro easily tucking his head into his chest and hiding his face underneath the protective embrace of his arm. 

There was the sound of a great number of footsteps, men bringing in filth and confusion and danger into their home as they pull in the water hoses, James Griffin’s voice shouting orders, but underneath all of that was the sound of more and more cars pulling into the driveway, jeering voices rising and rising. 

“Let it burn.”

“Why bother stopping it?” 

“Burn!” 

“Let it burn.” 

“The Aodháns should have died out years ago.” 

“God finally decided to punish the sinners.” 

“It should just burn down already.” 

"Save us all the trouble of doing it ourselves.” 

“It's going out,” a groan of disappointment goes through the crowd. There must be dozens of them, just watching the fight towards the fire. 

“Did a lot of damage, though.” There’s laughter.

“Sure made a mess of the big old place.” 

“All of it should have burned down years ago.” 

“With them in it.”

They mean them, Keith thinks, Shiro and him. 

“Say - anybody seen them? The boys and the old man?”

“They had plenty of warning.” That’s Curtis’ voice, safe from within the crowd. “They’ll be fine.” Shiro shudders underneath his touch, covering his eyes fearfully. 

Keith lifts his head carefully, watching the scene through the window at the crowd of people baying and booing. A couple of village boys scoot to the front, holding small rocks in their hands, and Keith ducks his head down, squeezing his eyes shut as a window somewhere above them shatters. The crowd laughs, and Shiro whimpers. He pets Shiro’s hair, squeezing him tighter against his chest as he keeps an eye on the light getting dimmer and dimmer underneath the doorway. The fire seems to have stalled upstairs, leaving the kitchen and Uncle Ulaz’s bedroom safe from the flames above. 

Eventually, the shouting upstairs quiets, and more footsteps go down the stairs than up. Hesitantly, Keith pulls himself up, seeing James Griffin walk out their front door, slowly taking off his hat that declares him as CHIEF.

“James, why’d have to stop it?” Someone complains

“That’s my job as a firemen, ladies and gentlemen.” James Griffin says loudly, setting his hat down on the front seat of his fire truck. With everyone’s eyes on him, he ducks down, slowly and carefully digging through the ground. Standing up, he weighs the rock in his hand, the crowd going silent as they watch him with bated breath. 

Spinning on his heel, James Griffin grins, and throws the rock right through the great tall windows of their mother’s drawing room. A wall of laughter rises, and they descend. 

Above all of the noise, the shouting and the breaking and the jeering, the most horrible was the laughter. Floods of them pour into their broken front door, shoveling each other aside, and in the very back of the crowd, he sees Hunk standing there with his hands over his mouth in horror. Their mother’s harp falls over with a musical cry, and a sound they are intimately familiar with of a chair being smashed against a wall. Dishes clatter loudly, and Keith holds his brother tighter, hearing them come closer and closer, destroying everything in their path. 

Through the laughter, someone sings, “Ceiteach, said Shiro, would you like a cup of tea?” He is on the moon, Keith begs himself, please let himself be on the moon. But the intruders are in the hallway now, and there’s no more time left. 

“Shiro,” he pleads, drawing back and forcing them to make eye contact, but Shiro covers his eyes with a hand. “We have to run, now.” 

His brother shakes his head vehemently. 

Keith glances behind him frantically, before gently shaking Shiro’s shoulders. “They’ll find us in a minute. Please, Shiro dearest, we have to go.” 

Shiro sucks in a gasp. “I can’t,” he beseeches Keith, nails digging into his skin. “Ceiteach, said Shiro, would you like to go to sleep?” More laughter, and Keith can’t wait anymore. He lets go of Shiro, ignoring his whine as he scrambles toward Uncle Ulaz’s chair, pulling his shawl off of the seat and wrapping it around Shiro’s shoulders. They can’t go out the outside door, not with the light of the headlights illuminating it for everyone to see, so Keith stands, leveraging up the window on the other side of the kitchen. 

“The basement - ” Shiro starts desperately, but Keith shakes his hand, helping Shiro kneel on the window ledge and crawl out, landing on the ground with a quiet whimper. 

“It’s too dark to see it, don’t worry.” He reassures, scrambling out of the window after him and ducking down, and not a moment too soon as the crowd breaks right through the kitchen door with a frenzied screech. Shiro pulls up Uncle Ulaz’s shawl over his head, hand shaking in Keith’s as they hesitate in front of the lawn lit up by hundreds of automobile beams, cascading against their pale house, but the windows are broken and inside they’re throwing their dishes and their glasses and their silverware and even the pots Shiro use in cooking; perhaps they’ll even destroy Keith’s stool in the corner. 

From the back of the crowd, another automobile rolls up into the driveway, and Coran Smythe jumps out of the driver’s side with his mouth agape. “What in the devil is going on out here?” He shouts, and Allura Altea climbs out of the passenger seat, is for the first time rendered silent. 

Coran gestures Allura to stay there, pulling a small revolver out of his jacket and making his way through the shouting and pushing crowd. “Crazy fools, crazy drunken fools.” He yells, and from inside there is a shout of laughter. “Would you like a cup of tea?” Someone inside screams, and they laugh. “Ought to bring it down brick by brick,” someone else laughs, and in front of them a little girl goes running by with her hands full, until her mother catches her by the back of her sundress and smacks Shiro’s spice cookies out of her hands with an enraged, “Don’t eat that!”. Matthew Holt runs by them without seeing them, his father, the town’s doctor, following close at his heels. “Where is Ulaz Aodhán?” Matthew asks a woman in the doorway, and the woman shrieks, “Down in the boneyard ten feet deep!”

Keith tightens his grip on Shiro’s hand, and starts running across the lawn towards the safety of the woods, Shiro tripping after him. “There they are!” Is shouted across the yard, and Keith runs as fast as he can, tearing across the grass with Shiro behind him, but Shiro is swiftly ripped from his grasp with a strangled gasp. 

He turns, violently throwing a punch at the man who has his arms around Shiro’s waist dragging him back, but another man simply takes his place, two more hefting Keith back and laughing at the way he screams at them. More and more gather around Shiro, men and women and children, throwing rocks and bottles and broken pieces of furniture at his brother who stands in the center of the circle with his hands tight around Uncle Ulaz’s shawl wrapped around his head. “Ceiteach, said Shiro, would you like a cup of tea?”Someone whistles, and the circle breaks, tightening around Shiro and pushing him down, ripping his shirt and digging their shoes in his defenseless curled up side. “ _L_ _EAVE HIM ALONE!_ ” Keith howls, thrashing against them, but he gags when one of the villagers punches him the gut, bile curling in his throat. “Oh no, said Keith, you'll poison me.” The one who punched him mocks, and Keith snarls, ripping his teeth into his forearm until he tastes blood on the back of his teeth. Someone else backhands him until he’s unsure if the blood he’s tasting is his or their’s, the world spinning around. “Ceiteach, said Shiro, would you like to go to sleep?” A stone nails Shiro in his shoulder, and his brother cries out, only spurring on the crowd. Hunk shouts something, two men holding him back as he struggles with them, begging for everyone to stop, and Allura slams her horn repeatedly, looking more and more and terrified with every moment. 

A gunshot goes off. 

Coran stands on the doorstep, gun raised in the air and a frown marring his usual jovial face. “That’s enough now,” he shouts over the silent crowd, the men dropping the Aodháns boys and backing away. “Down in the boneyard ten feet deep,” someone says, and the laughter rose, but Coran only raises his voice over them. 

“Ulaz Aodhán is dead.” 

The crowd finally completely silences, and Coran lowers his gun, Samuel Holt stepping up next to him. “There’s been a death in the house.” 

Several hands come up to hold their rosaries, and whispered prayers pervade the silence, only interrupted by Shiro’s muffled sobs as he lays on the ground, hands clasped over his head, shawl and shirt torn, pants dirtied beyond repair with spots of blood staining his shoulders and knees. 

“Did he kill him?” 

Everyone looks up, Curtis Aodhán standing at the front of the crowd. “Did Takashi kill him?” He asks again. 

“He didn’t.” Samuel Holt shakes his head, taking off his hat and resting it against his chest. “Ulaz Aodhán died the way we always knew he would, he’s been waiting a long time for his heart to finally go with him.” 

“Now leave!” The crowd finally reacts, everyone dropping and running towards their cars, motors starting and automobile doors slamming shut. Keith surges towards Shiro, helping his crying brother to his feet and rushing them through the lawn, glancing over his shoulder only once. His eyes meet Matthew Holt, the young man and his father surrounded by a small gathering of serious looking people. Matthew’s expression turns unreadable, breaking his gaze to settle on Shiro’s back, but then they’re gone, hidden by the trees. 

Keith knows the way to his hiding place, whether it be daylight or darkness, so he guides Shiro through the thickness of the trees, listening to the sounds of them leaving the estate and drowning the woods gradually back into it’s darkness without their headlights, until the ground underneath them slopes and softens. It’s good that he cleaned his hiding place out of all the dead leaves recently, so it’ll be pleasant for Shiro. He will cover Shiro with leaves, like children in a story, and keep him safe and warm. Perhaps he will sing to him or tell him stories; bring him fleshy fruits and berries and water in a leaf cup. They really will be happy, just the two of them, forever and always. 

Gently, he leads Shiro through the entrance, laying him down on the blanket and straightening Uncle Ulaz’s ripped shawl over him, feeling Red brush against his arm as she settles down against Shiro’s back, having been waiting for him like he told him to. “It’s all right now,” he whispers tenderly, taking Shiro’s hands between his own and pressing his forehead against his. “Everything’s over. We’re safe now.” 

Shiro stirs, opening his moonlit eyes. The leaves rustle, and his brother stares at him, recognition settling deep in his soul as he exhales against Keith’s mouth. 

“Is this the place?” Shiro asks.

The small item in Keith’s pocket burns. 

“It is.” Keith slowly lays down over the source of his greatest protection spell, face softening in one of true affection as he presses his cheek against the dirt lovingly. “This is where we buried Lance.” 

  
  


# YESTERDAY

Sometime during the night the ambulance came and took Uncle Ulaz away. Keith wonders if he misses his shawl, wherever people go after death, because it's wound twice around Shiro’s sleeping form curled up at Keith's side. He wishes he was kinder to Uncle Ulaz; Uncle Ulaz believed he was dead, but now he was dead himself. Red bumps into his fingers, smelling of smoke and wild things, and startles at the sight of Shiro, with dirt on his face and leaves in his hair; she has never seen Shiro look anything less than perfectly presentable. 

When light shimmers on the horizon, Shiro blinks awake, eyes on the moon still hanging low in the sky. “I thought it was a dream,” he whispers frightfully, face pale, but Keith chooses to ignore that. 

Keith scoots closer to him, tracing a streak of dirt on his face with his thumb. “We’re on the moon at last.” He tells him, barely able to contain his excitement. 

“Uncle Ulaz, oh, poor Uncle Ulaz.” Shiro’s face contorts wildly, his hands squeezing Keith’s arm. 

Plainly, Keith complains. “I missed dinner. I’m hungry, Shiro.” 

Shiro pauses, before pushing himself up quickly. “Oh, my Ceiteach. Poor baby,” he smooths back Keith’s hair, quickly untangling the shawl from himself. “We should get back then.” 

“You should wash your face first.” Keith says, because Shiro can’t enter the kitchen with a dirty face, that’s just against the rules. Shiro, still seeming so lost, lets Keith guide him down to the creek to wash his face before taking his hand and leading him down the path that would turn them out by the vegetable garden. They have to walk very quietly, with Keith walking soundlessly, Shiro making very little noise, and Red completely silent until they stop at the treeline. 

“Oh no.” Shiro moans, because the top of their house was gone. 

There is no one in sight, and no sound. They move together very slowly towards the house, picking their way through turned over furniture and broken decorations, trying to understand its ugliness and ruin and shame. Keith glances around, noticing that ash coated everything in a fine layer of dustiness, even the vegetables weren’t spared. No fire had come this way, but everything, the grass and the apple trees and the marble bench in Shiro’s garden, has an air of smokiness and dirtiness. As they come closer to the house he sees more clearly that the fire had not reached the ground floor, and had to be content with just the bedrooms and the attic.

Shiro hesitates at the doorway to his kitchen, before finally pushing in the wood with spray painted **GO AWAY** written over it and stepping over the threshold. 

“My kitchen.” He says lowly, almost like a cry. “My _kitchen_.” 

Keith points to the corner, delighted. “My stool is still there.” 

The kitchen table is turned over on it’s side, two of the chairs smashed on the floor covered with broken dishes and glasses and boxes of food. Jars of jam and syrup and catsup are shattered against the walls, the sink where Shiro washes his dishes filled with broken glass, as if glass after glass had been broken methodically, one after another. Drawers of silverware and cookware were pulled out and broken against the table and the walls, and silverware that had been in the house for generations of Aodhán wives is lying bent and scattered on the floor. Tablecloths and napkins hemmed by Aodhán women, and washed and ironed again and again, mended and cherished, had been ripped from the dining hall sideboard and dragged across the kitchen floor like shredded mops. Keith steps carefully over a shatter plate and picks up their little sugar bowl with roses, handles gone. 

Shiro gasps, and hurries through the cellar door, glancing rapidly towards the corner once he is a few steps down. “No,” he calls up, relieved. “They didn’t come down here, the preservatives are fine.” 

Instead of coming back upstairs, he continues down the steps, and Keith reluctantly follows after him, the floor gritty and almost alive from ripped sugar bags, because it always comes back to sugar in the end. 

He dislikes the cellar, because that’s where the ghost lives, but Shiro perhaps goes down there frequently as a sort of penance. Stopping on the third to last step, he watches Shiro kneel down in the corner behind the preservative shelves, lightly touching the mess of ropes and the low metal bar nailed to the wall. 

“I never meant,” Shiro begins, and then cuts himself off. Next to the pile of cut off ropes was a single blue Jumping Jack shoe, scuff marks and faded drawing done in marker along the sole, and his brother picks it up tenderly, pressing it against his chest like Keith once did with his small unearthed item. 

Keith pulls it out of his pocket, admiring the bone under the dim lighting, perhaps a pinkie or a toe, as small as Lance was. 

“He just wouldn’t quiet down,” Shiro starts again, frustration and grief lingering in every word. “Father was in the kitchen and he kept _shouting_ past the cloth and I didn’t know my hand covered his nose too, I _swear_ I didn’t, and he kept fighting me when I was just trying to take care of him like his parents couldn't and -” He sobs, hands tightening around the shoe. 

Then, quieter. “I didn’t mean to kill him.” 

Keith finally climbs down the rest of the stairs, pocketing Lance’s bone and crouching down next to his brother. “I know you didn’t.” He reassures, rubbing his hand down Shiro’s back. Shiro is the kindest person in the whole world, he would never want to hurt anybody. 

He just wanted something for his own, to take care of and cherish and not be worried about them coming back with bruises every time they leave your sight, and that’s why he kidnapped Lance. 

Keith crosses his arms over his knees, staring at the ropes for a long moment. He thinks about Lance being the only one willing to sit next to him at school, about racing each other on bicycles downhill while screaming at the top of their lungs, about Shiro’s genuine smile when Lance called him _Shiro_ and threw him arms around him in a hug, of sitting on his stool watching Shiro lead Lance down into the cellar with fever crazed eyes. “Let’s go,” he finally says, urging Shiro to set the shoe down. “I’m hungry.” 

Shiro wipes his face, nodding. “Okay,” he whispers, setting the shoe down and climbing to his feet. “Okay.” 

They carry up jars vegetable soup and strawberry jam and chicken soup and pickled beef, brushing aside the broken ceramic and placing them on the counter. Together, both of them lift up the table, setting the two unbroken chairs next to it and sweeping a clean enough path for Shiro to cook without having to look down every couple of seconds.

Shiro picks up a saucepan, and then then seems to think of something and disappears into the pantry. “Ceiteach,” he laughs. “They didn’t find anything in the barrels, or the cooler.” 

That’s good, Keith thinks, watching Shiro pull out of a loaf of bread and washing off a butter knife their grandmother brought into the house as part of her dowry. They already got the cereals and the crackers and the spices, all of them trampled over and bent like they had been tossed into the air, but the potatoes and the flour and the salt were hidden from the villagers and are safe.

Shiro butters him some toast, and pours him milk in a green cup with yellow on the inside and no handle. While Keith eats, his brother sits across from him, fingers folded and pressed against his mouth in thought. 

“What will they do with Uncle Ulaz?” Keith asks between bites, and Shiro smiles a sad smile.

“They’ll have a funeral, I imagine.” Shiro sits back, looking at the unblemished ceiling, perhaps the only part of the room unmarked from strangers. “Do you remember the others?”

Keith shakes his head. “I was in the orphanage.”

Shiro takes his hand, stroking the back of his palm with his thumb. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come get you then. I wasn’t allowed to come see you until the trial was over, but I came to pick you up as soon as I could.” He raises Keith’s hand, pressing it against his cheek with a remorseful smile. 

“I forgive you.” Keith squeezes his fingers, drawing a more genuine smile from Shiro. “I knew you’d come back for me, so I waited.”

“I’ll always come back for you.” Shiro laughs a little bit, finally letting go of Keith’s hand, but Keith recaptures his wrist and holds it firmly.

“As many times as it takes.” Keith vows sincerely, perhaps as sincerely as he’s ever been, and Shiro softens. 

When Keith finishes his breakfast, both of them work like children searching for shells, scouring along the broken pieces for anything useful or still whole. In the end they find two cups with handles, and several without, half a dozen plates and three bowls, placed back in the china cabinet missing a door and all of the glass panels. The cans of food undamaged are sorted and stacked, and the cans of spice went neatly back onto their shelf. Most of the silverware was recoverable, and they straighten them as well as they could and back into their proper drawers. The kitchen seems bare now, but the library books are still untouched, and for that, he’s thankful. There’s a fine for destroying borrowed property, after all. 

Shiro uses his heavy broom to brush whatever they can’t recover into the wastebasket as well as he could, and whenever it’s full Keith carries the trash bag out into the barricade he’s made using broken furniture and scraps of wood and metal alongside the side of the house blocking the front of the house from the back where the kitchen is. They follow the path into the dining hall, cleaning and scrubbing up the scattered remains from last night’s supper. 

“We should cover up the windows,” Shiro murmurs at one point, brushing the sweat from mopping the floors with the back of his arm. 

Keith tilts his head. “I think I can close the shutters.” He drops his rag, climbing through the broken window to the porch outside and looking up at the shutters as tall as the windows are high. They’re meant for someone on a ladder to close them when the family goes away for the winter to a city house, but they’re rusted enough that Keith only has to shake them once before they come toppling down.

He does the same in their mother’s drawing room, the white wedding cake trim blackened with smoke and soot and would never be clean again while their mother’s portrait watches over them, the edges cracked and stained with water. The room, like the hallway and the dining hall and the kitchen, is a mess, with the rose brocade on the chairs torn and dirty, smudged with the marks of wet feet that kicked at the chairs and stamped on the sofa. The torn drapes drift from the wind flowing through the broken windows, and he latches it shut with only a small amount of regret. 

They move into the parlor together, Shiro gasping in delight when they open the door. “My piano!” He says breathlessly, brushing the mess off the bench and the keys before hesitantly striking a tune. It seems, that despite their efforts, they were unable to damage it beyond a few superficial scratches and scuff marks.

Keith claps when Shiro finishes the jaunty tune, face alight with happiness. “I’ll play more later,” Shiro laughs, standing up and taking Keith’s hand. “I promise.”

“You better.” Keith jokingly threatens, swinging his hand happily. Shiro’s gifted at the piano - all Aodháns tend to be musically inclined in one form or the other, Keith himself could play the violin well enough for his mother to look up from her tea occasionally. He wonders where in the cellar it is - perhaps him and Shiro could play together like they used to as children, with the long stretch of days ahead of them.

They stop at the foot of the stairs, Shiro dropping Keith’s hand to kneel down among the trash glimmering like specks of sand on the beach under the rays of light from the skylight up above. Keith himself keeps his head craned back, looking at the fallen wood beams and soot stained walls, the stairwell completely destroyed. He’s sure that even if he went up the backstairs the result would be the same, the house has decided to reject them from the upstairs. 

Shiro stands up slowly, brushing off a miraculously unbroken snow globe of Kyoto. “Uncle Ulaz is gone, and the all the others,” he says very quietly. “Most of our house is gone, Ceiteach. We’re all that’s left.” 

“And Red.” Keith points out.

Shiro smiles weakly. “And Red.” He scrubs the ash off the snow globe with the edge of his shirt, pausing mid motion as if a thought occurred to him. “We’re going to lock ourselves in more securely than ever before.” 

Keith looks over. 

“Never again.” Shiro holds his eyes, something both fragile and firm holding steady. “No one will ever come in again. Now let’s go back to the kitchen, I can’t stay out here any longer.”

He nods, lingering just a moment to send one final glance up. The wind touches his cheek, but it only tastes of soot and dust, broken glass from the skylight up above glittering in the light. 

Their home is a castle, turreted and open to the sky. 

“Ceiteach?” Shiro calls. 

“Coming.” 

Shiro hums to himself as he cooks, lighting a match to start the stove and placing a saucepan on top. Keith sits at the table with a glass of milk, kicking his legs and watching Red bathe herself in a sunlit patch on the ground, the light bouncing off the snow globe resting in the center of the table. 

“Takashi?” Shiro freezes in the process of removing the egg, face paling. “Keith?” 

Keith silently stands up, checking the locks on the kitchen door. It’s secured, but just to be sure, he takes Shiro by the elbow and guides him down the stairs into the cellar a couple of steps, sitting them down on the third or fourth step down. 

“It’s Allura,” Keith whispers to his brother, but Shiro only shakes his head, shoulders trembling. 

“Never again.” He repeats soundlessly, over and over again, too bright eyes glowing in the dim light of the basement. 

“Takashi? It’s Allura and Coran, it’s your friends dear.” Allura knocks louder, but they stay silent in the dark. “Can you hear me?” 

Coran laughs. “I’m sure they can hear you. Everyone in the whole village can -” He yelps in pain, probably from Allura hitting him. 

Allura sighs. “It’s all just a misunderstanding dear, nobody meant any harm. Everything’s all right now, we’re going to forget all about it. I’ve come to take both you home with me, I’ll take good care of you until we can figure out what to do with your living situation.” 

Keith wonders if it’s all been ‘forgotten’ like the poisoning of their family six years ago. 

There’s silence for a long moment, before Allura abruptly says, “Coran, break down the door.”

“Heavens no! Everything else in this place is broken, I’m not going to break anything more.” Coran sounds flabbergasted. 

“Then climb in a window!”

“No, they’re adults.” Coran’s voice becomes louder, as if drawing the world’s attention to it. “Listen, I know the last thing you want is to see anybody right now. But you can’t hide away forever, one of you will get sick or injured, and you’ll have to see a doctor then.” 

They wait, breathes baited. “One day you’ll have to come out, and I hope then that you know my door’s always open for you.” Coran lets out a great sigh of air. “Ulaz’s funeral is the day after tomorrow, in the city, thought you’d want to know. Oh, and Takashi?” Shiro raises his head, eyes wide. “Matthew, he’s the eldest boy of Dr. Holt, he wanted me to let you know that when you’re ready, he wants to catch a cup of coffee with you at Hunk’s.” 

Shiro sits very, very still. 

“Let’s go, Allura.” Coran’s footsteps fade away, but Allura lingers. 

“I just want to know if you’re safe.” Allura says quickly, as if the words would escape her otherwise, before her footsteps scatter away from the home. They wait on the stairs for a moment or two longer, listening as Coran starts up the automobile and drives them down the driveway littered with junk and broken pieces of furniture. 

“Shiro…?” Keith asks hesitantly when his brother shows no sign of moving

Blinking, Shiro quickly shakes his head, smacking his cheeks lightly. “Let’s go back to making lunch, shall we?” He smiles cheerfully, but Keith can see through it clear as day. Perhaps if that request came a week ago, or perhaps even just a day, Shiro would have been exhilarated. 

But the bruises on Shiro’s shoulder and side, shown through the rips of his button up shirt, have started purpling like flowers, and with every broken scrap of ceramic his face falls a little more. It’s too late now. 

Keith doesn’t try to hide his delight. 

Shiro barely opens the carton to start poaching the eggs when another knock comes on the door, and Keith doesn’t imagine him rolling his eyes. 

“Mr. Aodháns?” Someone asks, someone Keith doesn’t recognize, just that he was older and definitely not someone who Keith could recall a face to. “Takashi? Keith?”

“Listen,” he says at last after a great silence. “I got a chicken here.”

He taps softly on the door. “I hope you can hear me,” he says. “I got a chicken here. My wife fixed it, roasted it nice, and there's some cookies and a pie. I hope you can hear me.”

Shiro’s eyes are wide with wonder, glowing in the bright light of the kitchen. He stares at Keith and Keith stares at him. 

“I broke one of your chairs. Um, I’m, I'm sorry.” He taps against the door again, very softly. “Well,” he says. “I'll just set this basket down on your step here. I’m, uh, sorry again.”

They’re silent for a very long moment, before Shiro cracks a wondrous smile. “Do you think it's as good as my pies?"

“I doubt it.” Keith says honestly. Shiro’s pies are very good, except, of course, his rhubarb pie. 

And that’s how the day goes. _KNOCK KNOCK_. Bacon, often home-cured, which Shiro does an adorable little wiggle at the sight of. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

He kneels on the counter, Shiro and him nailing a plank of wood across the kitchen window, one after the other until the kitchen is encased in darkness except for a sliver of light at the very top. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

More roasted chicken, tender and still hot from the oven, with a small note with ‘Sorry for the harp’ written on it, which Shiro crumbles up and throws away without a backwards glance. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

Shiro coughs as they shake out Uncle Ulaz’s blanket, cleaning out the room for them to sleep in, as the upstairs is lost to them. They'll have to share a bed from now on.

 _KNOCK KNOCK_. 

Giggling, Shiro plucks the slice of peach out from Keith’s fingers with his teeth, syrup dripping down Keith’s wrist and Shiro’s smiling mouth. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

“What are you going to do with Uncle Ulaz’s papers?” Keith asks when Shiro hesitates in front of Uncle Ulaz’s desk. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

Keith sighs as he opens the door after the knocking has long since faded, staring down at the numerous cartons of potato salad and coleslaw. “Shiro!” He yells long-sufferingly. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

Shiro rests a hand on the top paper, with the words **CHAPTER ONE** inscribed with Uncle Ulaz’s handwriting at the top. “I’ll put them all in a box,” he decides. “Uncle Ulaz would like to keep all his papers in one place.” 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

“I don't even know what to say.” Shiro says slightly in dismay at the very large crockery filled with baked beans sitting on the counter. 

Keith, miserably, pouts against the table. “I hate beans.”

 _KNOCK KNOCK_. 

Together, they decide to bury something yellow in Uncle Ulaz’s spot by the marble bench outside; Shiro a seed for a golden rose bush, and Keith Uncle’s Ulaz’s golden pencil.

 _KNOCK KNOCK_. 

“Perhaps I’ll make Yorkshire pudding soon,” Shiro says absently as Keith brings in a whole pot of beef stew and sets it on the counter. “This much food will go to waste otherwise.” 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

Shiro murmurs a quick prayer for Uncle Ulaz, or perhaps it’s an apology, as both of them have long since stopped believing in God. “Let’s go back,” Keith says gently when Shiro continues to kneel in the dirt, and eventually Shiro nods and follows him inside. 

_KNOCK KNOCK_. 

“More food?” Shiro asks wiry when another knock comes at their door, surrounded by baskets and pots full of food stacked on the counters. “We’re the biggest church supper they’ve ever had.”

Keith lets out an aborted laugh, sitting on the table despite the fact that it was not in good manners. The kitchen is dark now, wooden boards from the shed firmly nailed across all the windows, and Shiro looks quite sad at the idea of being in a kitchen that isn’t sparkling in the light. Once things calm down, Keith promises himself, he’ll open the backdoor and let some light in. 

The knocking continues, and Shiro frowns, confused by the disorder of the brief routine they’ve been thrust into. “Takashi!” An eerily familiar voice yells. “I’m back!”

Curtis.

Shiro freezes, hand hovering in mid-air like a picture frozen in time, face ashen. Keith eyes the top window, glassless and uncovered because Shiro was worried about the smoke.

“Takashi?” Curtis’ footsteps are coming around the back, and Keith creeps soundlessly off the table, gently grasping Shiro’s arm and pulling him down. “Darling, let’s forget all that ever happened.”

“I want to be friends again. Will you open the door?” Both of them crouch down behind the table, Keith slipping his arm over Shiro’s shoulders and holding him tight against his side. 

Curtis keeps talking, voice as thick as honey. “I didn’t mean for that to happen. I didn’t, I’m sorry. I can help you, Takashi.” There’s too much weight in his words, like he’s a god deciding to bestow his blessing instead of one human to another. “I can.”

But Shiro’s head slowly starts to rise. “We can have a life together, away from here. Don’t you want that, Takashi? Seeing the world? Italy, London, Japan? Remember how that felt? Remember? When we danced?” Keith’s arm slips down from Shiro’s shoulder to his waist, clinging on desperately with wide eyes. Why? Why? The day had been going so good, everything was light and happy but now - 

“Takashi, please, you have to open the door, do you understand? I can’t help you, if you don’t let me.” Keith glances up at his brother, who’s barely peeking over the edge of the table with something like hope. 

“Do you hear me, Takashi?” A thread of impatience enters his voice, gradually getting louder and louder with every word. It’s familiar. Shiro, at his side, flinches, ducking his head down slightly. “I can’t help you if you don’t _let_ me.”

“I’m not going away.” Softer, as if aware that he’s scared his prey. It reminds Keith of something, something painful. “I’m not going away Takashi.” Curtis pushes away from the window, his footsteps coming around the corner of the house. He curses loudly at the sight of the barricade, toppling things over and pushing through it. Keith launches himself, rushing towards the back door and sliding the door chain shut. He backs up until he hits the counter, hands fumbling along the pink tiles as he looks and looks. Where are the damn knives? 

Curtis grunts when the knob refuses to turn, taking several steps back. “There will never be anyone like me, Takashi. Who’s going to love you? Nobody. Nobody’s going to love you.”

Shiro swallows heavily, slowly standing up. He’s shaking, hands trembling and eyelashes blinking rapidly. They're nineteen and twelve all over again, waiting in the kitchen fearfully as their father stomped down the stairs, always trying to take the blames for each other's faults.

“Is that what you want, Takashi?”

Shiro mouths ‘no’ fearfully, glancing over his shoulder at Keith with wet eyes. Their father is coming down the stairs, and Shiro is sick again, and Keith feels like his heart is wrapped with electric barbed wire. 

“I don’t _deserve_ to be _treated_ like this.” Curtis growls, voice rising and rising, pitched with obvious anger. Shiro mumbles, voice trapped in his throat from fear. “I could just walk away. I _could_! Is that what you want!?”

Keith feels around for a knife desperately as Shiro slowly takes a step towards the door. And then another. And then another. Stumbling like he’s drunk, pupils blown and hands shaking. Shiro's sick, but that's okay. Keith will help him; he always does. 

“I don’t deserve this.” Shiro stops dead in his tracks, face paling as he backpedals rapidly at the note in Curtis' voice. “I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. I CAME HERE TO HELP YOU!” 

The kitchen door slams open. 

Shiro screams. 

The door chain catches once, and then snaps, bronze links scattering across the clean kitchen floor. His brother yelps, scrambling backwards, until his heel snags on the edge of his pants, tripping him and topping him onto his back. Curtis clambers on top of him, hushing him repeatedly and grabbing at his flailing arms.

“Hey, hey hey -” Shiro shrieks over anything Curtis might say, eyes unseeing. His shoes scramble against the floor, blood dripping down from where Curtis’ nails drag against his skin. “Calm down, Jesus Christ Takashi calm down!” Curtis yells in his face, bruising Shiro’s dirtied and pale arms. 

Shiro’s eyes meet Keith’s. Keith tilts his lips up reassuringly at his brother, and cracks the snow globe over Curtis’ head. 

The screaming putters to a stop. 

Curtis freezes above Shiro, glass and water sliding off of him. Slowly, he tilts to the side, and Shiro pushes him off of him with a staggered gasp, scrambling away until his back hits the counter with a muffled screech. 

Blood pools on their clean floors, spreading out an uneven circle from Curtis’ head, fake snow peppering Curtis’ dark skin. Keith slowly lowers himself to his knees, staring intently at the dead man to the sound of Shiro’s hyperventilating next to him. 

Calmly, he raises the broken snow globe above his head, and smashes it once more into Curtis’ head with a meaty thunk. 

Shiro sobs. 

Keith tilts his head down at the dead body impassively, peeling one finger at a time away from the shattered snow globe, before slowly setting it down on the floor. “Shiro,” he says plainly, ignoring his older brother’s flinch. “I made a mess.” 

His brother covers his face, keening into his hands. Keith scoots closer to him, crawling between the arch of his legs and resting his ear against his heart, closing his eyes and listening to the rapid _THUMP-THUMP THUMP-THUMP_. 

“Will you help me clean it up?” He asks sweetly. “I helped clean up your mess.” 

Shiro shakes under his touch. “…Okay.” He whispers. 

Together, both of them clean up Keith’s mess, blood dripping down Keith’s arms and all over his shirt, up his chin and a streak over his cheek. Shiro’s purple shirt is beyond repair now, blood splattered all across the front and over his pants, a few drops hitting his shoes as they carry the body out between the two of them, Curtis' arms swaying as they stumble down into the garden. Lance was a lot lighter, so they could carry him much further, but before they hit the treeline Shiro is panting and sweating, so they drop him on an empty patch between several fruit trees. 

Because Shiro’s tired, Keith volunteers to be the one to bury the body, muscles straining as he digs a deep enough trench for them to roll the body into, before shoveling all the dirt back on top of the remains. All the while, Shiro stands at his side, eyes vacant and drifting. 

Keith rolls his shoulders when he’s done, dropping the shovel on top of the fresh dirt and taking Shiro’s bloody hand. From here, they can down the hill towards where the village rests at the bottom, the faint plume of smoke from their chimneys and automobiles cutting through the bright blue spring sky. The only sound is the rustle of the leaves on the fruit trees around them and the distant singing of birds as they fly over the village, small white specks against the endless horizon.

All that exists in this world is him and Shiro, Keith thinks, and says aloud to his brother, “I’m going to put death in all their food and watch them die.” 

The flowers sway in the wind, blowing petals and ash through the air past them. “Like the way you did before?” Shiro asks. 

It has never been spoken between them, not once in six years.

“Yes,” Keith says after a minute. “Like the way I did before.”

Shiro laughs, voice broken and on the verge of tears, still not looking at him as he sobs. “May I have my dinner, Shiro?” Keith asks bluntly, bored of the view of dead people when there’s more important things in the world. Like his beloved brother, who Keith loves, forever and always.

As if pulled down from the clouds, Shiro listlessly looks at him with wet cheeks. His lips quiver, and then he’s laughing, a smile stretching across his entire face. “Yes,” he gasps out loud, eyes fever-bright. “You can have anything you want.” 

Keith nods his head, satisfied that their blissful order of their life has once more returned. “We’re going to be very happy, Shiro, I promise.”

# TODAY

When the sun barely peeks over the horizon, Keith soundlessly climbs out of Uncle Ulaz’s bed, dropping a kiss on the sleeping Shiro’s forehead before slipping out of the dark room and outside. 

The dewy grass kisses his bare heels as he treads alongside the house, fingertips brushing along the stone with his eyes on the ground. Eventually, he finds it, hidden safety among the fallen leaves, having fallen from grace to keep itself safe from the fire above. 

“I’ll think I’ll keep you.” He tells it quite seriously, pocketing the item, along with their mother’s tortoiseshell comb and Lance’s fragmented bone. There’s still time before Shiro wakes up, so he runs into the woods, hopping over fallen trunks and muddy patches, all by himself with his hair flapping wildly behind him, until he arrives at the small creek they buried him by. 

Kneeling down, he fishes Lance’s bone out of his pocket and sets it down on the wet sand by the river where the water just barely laps at it. When summer comes, the rains will follow and wash it away, down the river they played in as children, shorts bundled up to their thighs and laughing as they splashed each other. 

Lance was born in summer, he thinks, and bows deeply towards the river. 

“Thank you.” He tells Lance sincerely, for being a kind child, for offering him a refuge in their shared imagination, for bringing them gifts of snow globes after his family trips, for making Shiro smile when Keith had failed to do so for years. 

“Jerk.” His head snaps up at the soft whisper, but if Lance was ever there, he's gone now, leaving just a fragmented bone behind and the smell of the ocean. Keith laughs slightly, because really, typical Lance, always having to have the last word. 

“Love you too, asshole.” Keith says fondly, waving goodbye one last time to the memory he clung onto and the ghosts that haunted him. Lance is dead, been dead for seven years, ever since Shiro fetched him with tears running down his face, just a body on the floor with one shoe and bloodshot eyes from being accidentally suffocated on their basement floor.

He'll always be thankful for Lance. His death made Shiro break so beautifully, after all. 

With that done, he turns on his heel and leaves, humming to himself as he runs home, bursting through the kitchen door and into Uncle Ulaz’s room, throwing himself on top of Shiro's peacefully sleeping form. 

“Good morning Shiro!” He chirps happily, cheerfully ignoring Shiro’s pained groan. “I want biscuits with blackberry jam today.” 

After a moment, Shiro laughs softly, rubbing his eyes with a smile. “Then biscuits with blackberry jam you’ll have.” 

They get dressed; in Shiro’s case, he wears a simple white dress shirt and pants of Uncle Ulaz’s, while Keith wears a darned white tablecloth for a sleeveless shirt and pair of shorts with the belt pulled several times. They look like ghosts, Keith thinks fondly while they eat breakfast, except that the ghosts haunting their home are now gone, and it’s just Keith and Shiro, forever. 

“I was very wicked yesterday.” Shiro says abruptly during breakfast. His spoon, slathered with jam and posed over the homemade bread someone brought as an apology for breaking a lamp, freezes. There’s the bacon someone brought too, and Shiro scrambled them up some eggs, but all of it looks as unappetizing as ash now. “I never - I never wanted to talk about it. I wanted you to forget everything from before.”

Keith slowly puts the spoon down, eyes on his plate. There’s a nick in the corner, he notices. “Then why bring it up now?”

“I just wanted to say I’m sorry.” Shiro looks at him earnestly, but Keith is cold and can’t bring himself to lift his hand and comfort him. 

He sits back, watching his brother for a long moment, face devoid of any emotion. “I put the arsenic in the sugar.”

Shiro smiles breathlessly. “I know.” He answers, voice as light as a feather. “I knew then.” 

Keith inches his head to the side, and then, haltingly, like a child bragging about doing their chores, he says, “You never used sugar.”

“No.” Shiro says. “No, I didn’t.” 

“So I put it in the sugar.” 

His brother takes his hands then, smiling brightly up at him. “You saved me, my Ceiteach.” Shiro whispers. “Our parents were…They never even - held us as babies, so as not to spoil us.” 

“You did.” Keith points out kindly. “You held me and sang to me and played with me.” 

Shiro is the most precious person in the world, and so he only smiles helplessly. “I just did what anyone should do.”

Keith doesn’t think so. For a moment, all he does is think. About their distant mother and their strict father. About Uncle Ulaz and Aunt Ilun, who complained and comforted but never _did_ anything. About Sven, who got their parents affection when the sickly Shiro and the trouble making Keith never did. 

No, he doesn’t think anyone would have taken care of Keith like Shiro did. 

“Finish your breakfast now,” Shiro says kindly, and Keith nods, his head hurting slightly. Yes, he’ll finish his breakfast, and then perhaps he’ll write some. Uncle Ulaz was a firm believer that writing could help clear the mind like nothing else. 

Shiro shoos him off after breakfast, a wash basket balanced on his hip as he goes out to hang their laundry up. Keith hesitates on what to do for a moment, wondering if he should go outside with Shiro, before finally entering their shared bedroom. 

Carefully, he moves through the remains of Uncle Ulaz’s old bedroom, overflowing with piles of neatly stacked books and fly away papers. His foot gently knocks into the wheelchair pressed into the corner, the room barely lit enough to see with the light shining through the cracks of the boarded up windows, ash floating in the air. 

By the footboard of the purple Lit à la Polonaise bed was a single vintage table pushed against it, clear of any clutter besides for a single ornate metal box in the center of it. He stares at it for a moment, face completely devoid of emotion, before picking up the box and carrying it over to the quite cluttered desk pushed under the boarded over window. There’s a typewriter, coated in a heavy layer of ash, among a crooked lamp and piles of envelopes, all of which he pushes aside to place the box down. 

A bronze lion paperweight catches his eye, and his lips quirk up in something no one would quite call a smile as he brushes the metal fur, before he sits in the baroque chair none to gracefully. On top of the box is a black and white photograph, which he only spares a passing glance at before opening it. 

There’s more papers inside, but he flicks through them impatiently until he reaches the swatch of blank papers near the back. He searches deeper into the box until he finds the dip pen and inkwell, uncapping both of them without care before preparing the pen just the way he was shown as a child by his mother. 

_My name is Keith Akira Aodhán,_ he writes. _And I am eighteen years old. I once thought myself to be an alien from the moon, but my unfortunate human birth has been accounted for by many trustworthy sources._ Water drips down from the ceiling near the papers, and he scratches at his arm, murmuring to himself words of a spell. 

_I dislike washing myself, as well as dogs and noisy people._ He goes to continue, but pauses when he hears footsteps into the kitchen, the heel of Shiro’s saddle shoes echoing as he gingerly takes the broken stairs down into the basement, presumably to check on their cans. 

Keith’s eyes light up, face softening as he hears him sigh even a floor away, likely seeing the lack of rhubarb jam. Keith wonders if Shiro will once again stop by Lance’s spot in the basement - he wouldn’t know. The basement is perhaps the only place which Keith will not follow him into anymore. 

_I live with my brother Shiro._ He adds, resting his head against his hand, pen hovering over his brother’s name longingly. _Shiro is the most precious person in the world._

Footsteps slowly come back up the stairs, and the hairs on his arms rise as Shiro hums to himself as he walks past the bedroom door. _I like Shiro._

“Ceiteach?” Shiro calls. “Ceiteach, where are you?” 

_I also like the song ‘Little Bitty Pretty one’, cats, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom._

“Right here, Shiro.” He calls back, writing one last line onto the sheet of paper before capping the inkwell and pen, leaving the paper out to dry. Keith opens the bedroom door, face soft as Shiro does an about turn in the kitchen and faces him with a smile, both of their white clothes shining like beacons in the dark house. 

“I’m always right here.” Keith repeats, shoulders untensing as Shiro holds his hand out to him, interlinking their fingers with something that still isn’t a smile, but perhaps something close to it. Red curls around their legs, whining for food, but all Keith can see is Shiro’s smiling mouth. 

“That you are.” Shiro acknowledges with a forced laugh, averting his eyes even as Keith squeezes his hand. He tilts his head to the side, inquiring, but Shiro only shrugs helplessly. His brother, despite being taller than him, sometimes seems so small and broken. 

From outside, there’s the familiar chanting, half scared words shouting, “ _Ceiteach_ _, said Shiro, would you like a cup of tea?_ ” There’s a round of scattered, nervous laughter as they drop off another basket, the wheels of their bikes churning through their driveway as they take off with a terrified screech. Perhaps it's a pot of stew, or another roasted meat, but Keith hopes it’s some fresh fruit, like lemons or oranges, tangy enough to burn his mouth. 

Shiro laughs too, eyes squinting in the dim light of the kitchen. “It must be terrible to be so afraid.” He muses. 

Keith hums, tilting his head to the side. “I wonder if I could eat a child, if I had the chance.” 

Shiro snorts, thinking about it for a moment. “I doubt I could cook one.” 

A week ago, Shiro would have been horrified to make that kind of joke. He’s so proud. 

He laughs, voice bright and cheery despite the somberness of the house. “Shiro, oh Shiro, I’m so happy.” If there’s tears in his voice, Shiro is the only one to hear them. Only ever Shiro, forever and always. 

_Everyone else in my family is dead._

"Silly child." Shiro kisses his cheek, before letting go of his hand and returning to his chores with another adorable hum. It makes him think of something, and struck by inspiration, he escapes into the dining hall, searching through the rubble until he finds it. 

The turntable is in relatively good condition, luckily, the only harm being the broken record and the scratches all along the wooden casing. He searches through their records until he finds the one he wants, setting it on the table and calling for Shiro. 

“Is something wrong?” Shiro asks, poking his head in the room. Keith shakes his head, gesturing him closer, and with a frown, Shiro walks until his shoes are inches from Keith’s, tilting his head to the side adorably. “Ceiteach?” 

Keith stands on his tippy toes, slipping the item he grabbed earlier out of his pocket and braiding it in Shiro’s hair. “I can’t have the dance party guest come without something fancy.” He teases, adjusting the golden watch chain until it brushes against Shiro’s jaw all the way down to his Adam's apple. 

Shiro blinks, his hand flying up to feel at the strange hair accessory. “Silly Ceiteach.” He laughs, brushing Keith’s own hair out of his face. “What about you then?” 

Oh. He didn’t think of that. 

Pulling out their mother’s tortoiseshell comb, he frowns at it, only for Shiro to tsk and take it out of his hands and gather up Keith’s hair into a messy bun, pinning it artfully with the comb. “It’s a good thing you hate haircuts.” Shiro ribs, the watch chain sparkling in the dim light from the light peeking through the shutters. “Otherwise your hair wouldn’t be even close to long enough for this.” 

“I dislike the sound scissors make so close to my ears.” Keith complains, leaning over and adjusting the tonearm until music starts to play. Stepping back, he bows, offering out a hand to Shiro. “May I have this dance?” 

Shiro beams, taking his offered hand with a bow of his own. “You may.” 

_When I fall in love_. Shiro tries to take the lead, but Keith jokingly fights with him for the position before Shiro simply just grabs his hand and takes off in a perfect waltz. _It will be forever._

Keith spins, one foot after the other, before being pulled back in a jerk of Shiro’s arm. _Or I'll never fall in love_ In revenge, Keith leans up on his toes and forces Shiro to spin, setting both of them off course from the dance lessons that had been drilled in them since birth. 

_And the moment I can feel that._ Gradually, the fun nature of their dance starts to fade into something more relaxed, Keith resting his head on Shiro’s shoulder and closing his eyes.

“Hey Ceiteach?” He hums in acknowledgement. _You feel that way too._

When Shiro doesn’t say anything, he opens his eyes and glances up, only to meet Shiro’s smiling eyes, his older brother leaning down to brush their foreheads together. _Is when I'll fall in love_. 

“I love you, my Ceiteach.” _When I fall in love._

Shiro doesn’t say anything more, so Keith leans his head back down on his shoulder, both of them slowly rocking in place, hand in hand as they listen to the crooning of the music. The boundaries between them have finally become blurred. 

Keith, for the first time in six years, _smiles_. “I love you too.”

_When I fall in love with you._

**Author's Note:**

> Songs used:  
>  _Little Bitty Pretty One_ by Thurston Harris  
>  _Ciumachella De Trastevere_ by Claudio Villa  
>  _It's Been a Long, Long Time_ by Harry James and Helen Forrest  
>  _When I Fall in Love_ by Nat King Cole
> 
> Yes, that dance scene at the end is both of them dancing to a love song and emulating their parents. This fic was a blast ^^ Also Ceiteach, Shiro's nickname for Keith, literally just means Keith in Irish. Aodhán means "little fire" in Irish, which considering what happens in this fic... Keith and Shiro are a mix of Japanese and Irish in this fic, which has the villagers making some pretty racist remarks, though Keith is a bit racist himself towards Curtis. Goddammit 1950s, why did you have such a difficult political atmosphere. 
> 
> Keith's a sociopath through and through. The only person he truly cares about is Shiro, and to a very limited extent Hunk. He cared about Lance too, to a great extent actually, but really only felt some guilt towards his death. He's incapable of remorse and deep emotions to anything that doesn't involve Shiro. His actions and thoughts are of someone much younger than he actually is, so for all intents and purposes he acts like he's eight, not eighteen. I find it fascinating how Merricat (the original narrator I based Keith off of) never justifies herself to the audience or herself, and I tried to incorporate that into this fic while still keeping the child abuse themes from the movie. 
> 
> I can't help but feel bad for Shiro as well, but honestly, Shiro was never exactly sane either. There's a lot of implications that his feelings towards Lance weren't exactly platonic (if you consider their age gap...), and with the combination of his savior complex, it led to him kidnapping Lance and trying to take care of him like a puppy. Then he accidentally smothers Lance when trying to stop him from calling for help, which ends up being a giant metaphor really. 
> 
> Yes, in the 1950s there was an attitude that holding your infant or giving them affection would spoil them, so they would only give them the bare minimum of physical touching to feed them and change them. In reality, it ends up with severe consequences developmentally for the children. Case in point; how mentally unstable Shiro and Keith grew up to be. 
> 
> I had fun writing this, so I hope you had fun reading it!! Thank you for reading!!


End file.
